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"HEpp ure 5l 3ttuove" 




A RIDICULOUS FAD. 

"I am attacked by two classes of persons — the 
learned and the ignorant. Both of them treat me with 
ridicule, and say that I am only fit to be a dancing 
master for frogs, and yet I think that I have dis- 
covered one of the grandest forces in Nature." 

Galvani. 

Some important facts have their origin in fads! 



co\ 




APA-IN-CHINAK ? 



? 



FADS OR FACTS ? 



By RA YON 

OTHER WORKS: — "THE MYSTIC SELF," 

"THE MYSTIC SELF MASTERY 

SERIES," ETC. 



14 There is nothing in which men approach so near the 
gods as when they try to give health to other men." 

— Cicero. 





JMfam 



Ohio Building, Wabash Ave. and Congress St. 
CHICAGO, ILL., U. S A. 



Copyright, 190s 

BY 

M. RAYON 

All Rights Reserved 






So indubitably did "coming events cast their shadows 
before" that, to include some facts of value, the making of 
this little book was postponed from month to month. 



First Printing, June, 1908 



LIBRARY Of 0QNGH63S 
Two Gooies Kecetvee 

jul 10 woa 

/// 2.*7 

copy a,/ 






Cfjr lakes ft* lltfss 

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



CONTENTS 



A Portrait and a Riddle . . foc^tuupZ 

Why This Book Was Made 

What Delayed This Book 

The Renaissance of Mysticism 

Treasures That Cannot Be Lost . 16 

Mystical Powers in Mankind 

Healers in History: Part I 

Healers in History: Part II 

Healers in History: Part III 

Facts That Justify the Spreading 

of So-called Fads 
Historical Proof of Senses Denied 

by "Common" Sense . . q8 

Notes from the New Testament . . IO? 



XI 
XIII 

I 



17 

44 
59 

75 

87 



WHY THIS BOOK WAS MADE 



The same motive that prompted the production of the 
"Mystic Self" is responsible for "Fads or Facts ?" 
Mainly, both these little books were intended to meet a 
demand for information that could not be satisfied by 
correspondence. 

The dominant want now appears to be confirmation 
as to the wisdom and right to trust in God and Nature 
for comfort and help that the doctrines and arts of men 
fail to provide. 

Following are some of the leading questions asked: — 

"Why is this, or that, strong trend of thought, of 
steadily increasing conviction, called a fad ? ' ' 

"On what tenable ground is this, or that assertion 
declared to be an established fact ? ' ' 

"Are there credible records of persons known as 
1 Healers' and their works ? " 

" Is proof extant that healing has been done by the 
Power of the Spirit since the close of the Apostolic 
period ? ' ' 

Taking the gist of these questions in concrete, it may 
be said — that earnest investigation, made without bias, 
discloses that much truth is contained in so-called fads; 
and a like examination shows that many assertions ranking 
as incontestable facts are, in fact, mere fads. 

The actuality of "Healing Power' ' will not be 
doubted by any one who reads this book. 

7n~7?a!um 



WHAT DELAYED THIS BOOK 



I waited long. 

What was it I waited for ? I expected something to 
happen. 

I entertained the foolish hope that I would be able to 
include the report of some one or more of the "ordained" 
—at last— taking Christ at His word and start doing the 
work He said all can do who have the requisite faith. 

When the public was implored to help guess why 
more and more folks stay away from church I thought 
that the scales must fall from some reverend's eyes and 
disclose the apparently insoluble problem; but- 
Sanctified dancing floors have been offered as an in- 
ducement to come into church; also orthodox bowling 
alleys, billiard halls, smoking rooms— and even "court- 
ing parlors " with cozy nooks and corners; but — 

At last it did dawn on some of the frocked gentry 
that if they could make a show of " healing " it might 
check the desertion. 

Well ! Some have tried it, but the nearest approach 

was to form a combine with some "very regular " medics. 

Imagine Jesus trotting around with a staff of doctors, 

who, of course, must have diplomas from certain recog- 



nized schools and be duly licensed; He waiting patiently 
until temperatures were ascertained, tongues examined, 
pulses carefully noted; He, then, healing according to the 
prescription! 

What a farce ! 

And — they want it distinctly understood that their 
healing work is not Christian Science ? 

Who do they think would be idiotic enough to believe 
that it is? M. R. 



THE RENAISSANCE OF MYSTICISM. 

What am I? Why do I suffer physical pain and 
mental torment? Why do doubts assail me when my 
much vaunted reason had reached apparent convic- 
tion? Is immortality an ascertained fact? What 
will I be after so-called death? What is a soul? 
Why am I to myself the most perplexing- of all 
mysteries ? 

These and similar questions are asked with ever 
increasing vehemence and persistency. True, they 
have been asked since man began to think, but the 
thoughts of the great majority were fettered. A 
dominant minority— a ridiculously small minority- 
has been able to hold human thought and aspiration 
in check for ages. That state of enthrallment, how- 
ever, is passing away. The subtle evasions of science 
no longer suffice to satisfy the expanding mind; the 
wornout platitudes of sectarian theology, that served 
so long to still the clamor of querists, have lost the 
power to stop inquiry. 

It was predicted that the beginning of the cur- 
rent century would witness a great mental revolu- 
tion. The only error in that prophecy was that when 
it was made we were already in the midst of it. In- 
dependence of thought is the outcome of this 
widespread upheaval. Men who rank high in the 
prominent occupations — educators, writers, scientists, 
jurists, and others who are also students, whatever 
else they be, and even churchmen— some of whom ad- 
mit having been stubborn skeptics, after unbiased and 

l 



diligent examination, avow the finding of ample war- 
rant for beliefs that have been violently condemned 
by the church and declared to be hallucinations by 
science. That let down the bars; the hoodwinks of 
form-religion are being cast off; the asserted "regu- 
larity" of medical science is freely questioned. The 
great human throng has, at last, commenced to do a 
little independent thinking, is bolting, pell-mell, into 
the long prohibited and alluring field of self-knowl- 
edge. 

This late, but now immense, endeavor of rectifica- 
tion is not diminishing true religious sentiment; on 
the contrary, real belief, the old faith, the kind un- 
known so long, the quality that Jesus said needed 
but as much as a grain of mustard seed to work a 
miracle — that faith is coming to mankind anew; and 
for that blessing we are indebted neither to the church 
nor science. It may even be said that this faith is re- 
appearing despite church and science. 

Real science, that is to say, applied science, the 
only kind ever worth considering, has long ago 
coalesced with metaphysic, in that it makes use of 
forces of which the substance and origin are beyond 
the ken of the physicist. The real scientists of to- 
day are doing what the old-time magicians did, the 
only difference being in modes of use of the im- 
ponderable agents. 

Ancient mysticism and all the things comprised in 
the collective term "New Thought," have been al- 
together too recklessly dubbed chimeras and fads. 
They are, the most vociferously, so-called by those 
who foresee losses in new discoveries and in the 
resurrection of long obscured and suppressed knowl- 
edge. Many oppose research and investigation be- 
cause discoveries made threaten to disorganize sys- 



terns in vogue that are ever more apparently seen to 
be founded on entirely false premises. 

Those who have paid the long price demanded for 
tuition, in order to live in affluence by these systems, 
very naturally defend them. It is easy to see what 
the downfall of these systems would entail. Obvi- 
ously opposition is here a matter of self-preservation 
in which the welfare of the "outsider" — meaning the 
masses — will not be given paramount consideration, 
although the one valid reason for the maintenance 
of these wealth-absorbing systems is the physical, 
mental and spiritual aid they profess to afford the 
needing multitude. 

Incontestibly intelligent men and women by the 
hundreds of thousands are now in eager pursuit of the 
so long occulted truths. Many of these are present- 
ing proof in abundance that what they have already 
found brings them physical benefit, mental strength, 
and spiritual satisfaction. 

It must be admitted that these radical changes 
in views have brought about a new state of chaos and 
conflict; but there is no menace to peace in this re- 
formation ; it will not tend to torturing, to slaying, to 
general devastation, as has been the manner of 
conversion; neither will mutations in progress involve 
the wholesale butchering, in lingering agony, of de- 
fenseless animals and human beings to test artificial 
expedients by which material science attempts to 
coerce nature. 

The original purpose of the old system-builders was 
good ; it designed order ; but with the massing of fol- 
lowers came personal ambition, vanity, greed of power 
and wealth, and other detriments. The system, what- 
ever its name and intent, was recklessly expanded and 
complicated and embellished to give it greater appar- 

3 



ent importance in the eyes of the populace until the 
few sound principles upon which it was grounded 
were lost sight of entirely. 

Thus the sublime faith that heals was lost in the 
ceremonial pomp that marks the secular aggrandize- 
ment of the church, just as the vis medicatrix natitrce, 
so persistently set forth by Hippocrates, the founder 
of the medical art, became a myth with the concretion 
of remedial modes into a purely physical science. 

Thus, gradually, all things that are an iota beyond 
the scope of the physical senses were lost to the ken 
of the great majority by designed occultation. But 
truths such as here considered are never wholly lost; 
neither can they be permanently suppressed. There 
are always some few whose mission it is to preserve 
them and to transmit them. And again: at certain 
periods these indestructible verities appear spontane- 
ously to revive and spread further and further over 
the world. Such a renaissance is with us now ; a 
greater than has ever been known before. 

The steadily increasing rejection of material med- 
ication is a conspicuous feature of this disenthrall- 
ment. 

Medical science has been pampered and enriched 
to an inconceivable extent. For centuries it has been 
given privileges that surpass human tolerance. The 
most extravagant claims have been, and are constantly 
being, made for remedies newly discovered that, with 
few exceptions, pass to the vast rubbish-heap of 
scientific delusions. It is never asked how much 
harm has been done by the administering of, said to 
be, infallible specifics. The innumerable fatal blunders 
are not recorded; because they are committed by 
"regular" science. Is this charge unfair? 

Among many avowals of shortcomings on the part 
of the medical profession, made by the foremost men 



belonging thereto, one may be cited that covers fully 
the question of so arrogantly asserted regularity and 
vaunted efficiency, and that unreserved condemnation, 
with slight changes in diction, but no modification, 
has been repeated by scores of other authorities. The 
paragraph in question is quoted from an address by 
the eminent English physician, Dr. Alexander M. Ross, 
F. R. S. A who said: 

"The past fifteen years have been rife in medical 
delusions, and each in its turn for the time being has 
served to addle the brains of the profession and in- 
jure the health and deplete the pockets of the credu- 
lous dupes. During the period mentioned we have 
had the 'purging craze/ the 'sweating craze/ the 
Vomiting craze/ the 'blue glass craze/ the 'Brown- 
Sequard Elixir of Life craze/ the 'Inhalation craze/ 
the 'Cod Liver Oil craze/ and last, but not least, 
the 'Koch Tuberculosis craze/ 0, temporal O, mores! 
What fools we are !" 

When men of Dr. Ross' calibre are moved to make 
such sweeping accusations it is pertinent to call atten- 
tion to the difference between "medical crazes" and 
so-called "new thought fads." Natural healing can do 
little harm when it fails to do good; whereas a new 
drug-specific, at once widely heralded — "boomed" all 
over the world, goes to physicians who, incapable of 
writing a sensible prescription — there are many such 
— seize upon all remedies that are advertised in their 
class papers and try them. The result? Thousands 
upon thousands of graves have been filled by this 
blind following; by such ignorant experimentation. 
How vast the number is of fatal blunders so commit- 
ted is beyond estimate. Proof of error is buried with 
the cadaver. If the doctor is a "tegular" that ends 
the matter. 

A judicial inquiry following a death is seldom heard 



of if the deceased was attended by a so-called " regu- 
lar" doctor ; any one who has a diploma from a polit- 
ically recognized school and is registered. It has been 
found altogether useless to ask for a post mortem ex- 
amination because of suspicion of error on the part 
of a physician in charge of the case. Where applica- 
tion is made for an investigation to determine whether 
it was disease or the doctor that killed the patient, the 
appeal is generally peremptorily denied. If it is 
granted the medic under suspicion is invariably 
cleared of all blame — providing he is a "regular." 

When the most eminent men in medicine express 
themselves as freely as they do, to the effect that, let 
me put it mildly, there is as much charlatanry in their 
profession as there is outside of it, then, surely, any 
law giving two or three certain schools the exclusive 
right to treat the sick can be considered in no other 
aspect than as an unjustifiable bar to progress; as an 
unwarranted, contra-constitutional act that deprives 
the individual of the most important right he is en- 
titled to insist upon — namely: the privilege to choose 
whoever he wants to minister to him in sickness. 
Plainly — the medical law, as it stands, can be con- 
strued as nothing other than gubernatorial protec- 
tion of a monopoly beside which trusts of a purely 
commercial character are brilliant examples of moral 
rectitude. 

An untitled healer, no matter how much proof may 
be adduced as to his ability to cure disease, is arrested 
and heavily fined, or sent to prison, or both, if he is 
"caught" giving help to sufferers, even to such whom 
science (?) has abandoned as incurable! 

It is to be noted that there are but two conditions 
under which the average medic pronounces the ter- 
rible verdict "incurable." The first is, w r hen the means 



of the patient are exhausted ; the second is, when 
fears are entertained that the case hurts the doctor's 
reputation. As long as these conditions are absent the 
victim is encouraged to hope — and pay fees. 

It surprises some people to hear that at no time was 
the world without natural healers. Many appear to 
have forgotten that healing the sick was the principal 
occupation of Jesus, and that He said that all who have 
sufficient faith should be able to do the works that 
He did. Many have healed the sick in the same man- 
ner, and he is a presumptuous fool who declares faith- 
cure to be a fallacy. He is a crass ignorant, or some- 
thing worse, who alleges it to be a humbug. The 
more experienced the investigator is, the more read- 
ily will he agree that the most important problem 
for science to solve is, how largely faith enters into 
every successful mode of dealing with disease ; with 
drugs or without. 

Some of the wisest, most honest, and most candid 
of the old practitioners, as Dr. Daniel Hack Tuke, for 
instance, have proved to complete conviction, the ef- 
fect of emotion on the physical organism. Those who 
know anything whatever of metaphysic and that real 
psychology that some of the foremost modern scien- 
tists are now trying so hard to fathom, are aware that 
emotions can not only be controlled by action of mind 
upon mind, but that the mind of a patient can be 
compelled to engender emotions that are conducive to 
convalescence. 

Getting down to basic facts — is not this the funda- 
mental principle of healing arts, of whatever kind, 
new or old? 

Is not control of the emotions through the mind 
very closely allied to the vis medicatrix natures of 
Hippocrates and his immediate followers? Is not rap- 



port, so much in evidence ever since the tremendous 
furore caused by Mesmer, far over a century ago, a 
state induced by appeal to a certain emotion? The 
state called rapport demands control, sympathy, trust; 
and what are these but the constituents of faith? 

Is not this, in specialized forms, all there is to sug- 
gestion, suggestive therapy, Christian Science and 
other effects that are produced by impression on the 
mind ? 

This does not mean that impressions on the mind 
cover the whole ground of natural healing, but it does 
mean that without such impression the mystical restor- 
ative principle is not aroused to action. Any and 
every other effect must follow a favorable mental im- 
pression, or it is of no avail. Just here is where seri- 
ous mistakes are made. It is not the impression on the 
mind (suggestion) that effects a cure. The impres- 
sion made tends only to induce a certain state in which 
the body becomes receptive to the imponderable force 
that Hippocrates called the vis medicatrix natitrce. 
The term "magnetism," by tacit agreement adopted by 
a large majority of students and serious investigators, 
includes the healing potency so often referred to by 
Hippocrates. A mental impression, a suggestion, is 
a preparation and nothing more. 

"According to thy faith, so be it unto thee" is the 
full explanation in a nutshell. Commensurate with 
the force of the impression taken by the mind will be 
the "openness" of the self to beneficial influences in 
any form. 

It is indeed strange that drugless, natural methods 
of dealing with disease have never been given sys- 
tematic encouragement and help. In view of what 
has been done by natural healers — facts known to all 
intelligent and unprejudiced people who have inves- 

8 



tigated these things, a question full of import arises 
here, and that question is: What might — undoubt- 
edly would — have been achieved, if an institution had 
ever been founded in which the various natural rem- 
edial modes had been patiently, tolerantly investigated 
and systematically (scientifically) exploited? 

This glorious opportunity to benefit mankind is still 
open to philanthropy. 

Instead of being encouraged to give proof of the 
wonderful restorative agencies in nature, exponents 
of these simple modes of curing the afflicted are 
treated as criminals and are relentlessly persecuted. 

Nearly all the states in the Union have medical 
laws that give the right to practice to three specified 
schools exclusively. Moreover, this law has been, 
from time to time, amended so that it now prohibits, 
under severe penalties, the treatment of the sick by 
any method whatever by any person who is not a 
member of one of the preferred schools. That this is 
class-legislation in its most pernicious form cannot be 
contravened. Corrupt and ignorant politicians have 
enacted these laws for an unscrupulous lot of jealous 
and greedy medics who bartered their votes and in- 
fluence for the advantage of this outrageous monop- 
oly. No physician of merited reputation has ever 
been identified with the framing and lobbying of those 
laws. The medical laws, as they now stand, are the 
most heinous wrong ever perpetrated on the citizens 
of a country whose constitution guarantees individual 
right and personal liberty. 

When, very few years ago, an attempt was made 
to have one of these medical-trust bills confirmed in 
Colorado, it was vetoed by Governor Thomas who, 
with his disapproval sent a specification of his reasons, 
from which the following excerpt is made : 

9 



"Whatever may be the design of the bill it will 
not protect the public health. If statistics are to be 
relied on the death rate of Colorado is as low as it 
ever was and lower than in some of the states which 
have enacted measures of legislation similar to this. 
The department of surgery excepted, medicine is not 
a science. It is a series of experiments more or less 
successful, and will become a science when the laws 
of health and disease are fully ascertained and under- 
stood. This can be done, not by arresting the prog- 
ress of experiment, and binding men down to hard 
and fast rules of treatment, but by giving free rein 
to the man who departs from the beaten highway and 
discovers hidden methods and remedies by the way- 
side. It is through these means that the public health 
is promoted and thereby protected, that the members 
of the medical profession are enabled to minister 
with success to human ailments and bodily suffering. 
Nearly every advance in the treatment of diseases, in 
the method of their detection, and in the prevention 
of their occurrence, has been made by physicians in 
disregard of the regulations of the order; and the 
great body of their brethren, after denouncing and 
enduring, have ultimately accepted the unquestionable 
results of these researches and discoveries, and made 
them respectable, by adding them to the category of 
the recognized and the regular. But for this the 
leech, the lancet, and the pill-box would still be the 
regulators of the public health, and licenses to practice 
would be confined to these, and these only who used 
them. This is but to say that medical progress in 
general has not been made by, but notwithstanding the 
great body of its professors. * * 

"The title of the bill, as it relates to the public, is a 
misnomer. This is a common subterfuge; all meas- 

10 



ures designed to promote a specific interest or pro- 
tect an existing evil are ostensibly labeled 'for the ben- 
efit of the people/ The fact that the people do not 
seek the protection, ask for the benefit, nor suspect 
the existence of the alleged danger is wholly imma- 
terial." 

That the stated objections of Governor Thomas are 
valid no one will gainsay who is without prejudice and 
conversant with the facts in the case. This veto is the 
expression of a man who had thoroughly informed 
himself; who was too keen to be duped by medico- 
political sophistries ; who was too honest to jeopardize 
the welfare of his people for the sake of political pre- 
ferment. 

When a similar bill was being prepared in England, 
Mr. Gladstone was asked to give his opinion of such 
a measure. His reply was : "The government has no 
more right to dictate who shall be my physician than 
it has to order who shall shoe my horse." 

Herbert Spencer, in his work "Social Statics," de- 
votes a chapter (28) to "Sanitary Supervision." A 
few extracts therefrom follow : 

"If it is meant that to guard the people against 
empirical treatment, the State should forbid all un- 
licensed persons from prescribing — then the reply is, 
that to do so is to directly violate the moral law. 
Men's rights are infringed by these as much as by 
all other trade interferences. * * * 

"There is a manifest analogy between committing 
to government guardianship the physical health of the 
people, and committing to it their moral health. The 
two proceedings are equally reasonable, may be de- 
fended by similar arguments and must stand or fall 
together. If the welfare of men's souls can be fitly 
dealt with by acts of parliament why, then, the wel- 

11 



fare of their bodies may be fitly dealt with likewise. 

"There is an evident inclination on the part of the 
medical profession to get itself organized after the 
fashion of the clerisy * * moved as all men are 
under such circumstances by nine parts of self-in- 
terest gilt over with one part of philanthropy." 

Many similar expressions from men of reputation 
are available. From this showing conclusions may 
be reached as to the character of those who demand 
such laws — and their sole motive. 

If medical science, so-called, was what it professes 
to be there would be no need of special laws to com- 
pel people to seek its aid. 

Various movements started during the past two de- 
cades, that are steadily expanding and solidifying, 
prove that at last it has dawned on the minds of the 
multitude that altogether too great a proportion of its 
earnings have been absorbed by "systems" that give 
no equivalent therefor. 

Explanations were demanded regarding things ta- 
booed by the church and ignored by science. As no 
satisfactory elucidations were forthcoming from so- 
called "orthodox" and "regular" sources the people 
sought the desired information elsewhere. As no de- 
mand continues long without bringing some kind of 
supply, especially when the prospect of large profit 
is good, this want, apparently, was soon filled. Keen- 
witted individuals quickly noted the opening of this 
"Eldorado"; dusty tomes were dragged out of ob- 
scure corners and from their contents skeletons were 
drawn for new doctrines and practices. Men and 
women who were shrewd enough to see the vast op- 
portunity to make "easy money" and who were not 
overburdened with conscientious scruples, hastened to 

12 



obtain a smattering of mystic lore and formulated 
"lessons" according to their crude conceptions, then 
started out as teachers. The country was overrun 
by them in short order, and those with glib tongues 
and who possess that wondrous gift, personal mag- 
netism, were welcomed in about all places visited and 
were well paid for the little they gave. Soon writers 
and publishers "caught on" and the presses turned 
off masses of literature; a potpourri without parallel 
of ancient mysticism, Eastern philosophy, attempts to 
prove that Christ was a hypnotist, and sundry wild 
speculations that, finally, found a sort of concretion 
in the omni-collective term "New Thought." 

The devil (is said to have) said: "He is but a 
fool who thinks he has a new idea." The more we 
come to know of "New Thought" — following some 
familiarity with primitive healing methods and ancient 
mysticism — the more ready will we be to indorse that 
speech as a truth, though it is attributed to the father 
of all lies. 

Dire as is the new confusion created by this resus- 
citation of fragments of long buried truths and the 
padding of these scraps with purely speculative deduc- 
tions and audacious fiction, good results are follow- 
ing. Many earnest and competent men are now at 
work sifting this mass of chaff and they are finding 
many grains of truth. The facts already established 
by real, as well as "regular" scientists; and by trust- 
worthy as well as "orthodox" theologians — have led 
to wider reflection. Finding themselves unscrupu- 
lously duped by institutions upon which they had been 
taught to rely without questioning, the "commoners" 
began to think. It sounds ridiculous to say of a man 
"he has commenced to think," but the fact is that 
comparatively few are thinkers. The majority merely 

13 



repeat what they have heard or read. Once this par- 
rot-role is discarded the change produces a rebel. The 
natural tendency, then, is to break out of a bondage 
in which non-reflecting conformers have ever been 
held to be milked and fleeced. Then, in the expand- 
ing mind, arise the questions found at the beginning 
of this article, and the sequence to such self-interroga- 
tions is the conviction that there must be a way to 
please God and to come in accord with Nature with- 
out the paid aid of intermediaries of whom the major- 
ity are — to say the least — signally incompetent. 

The first real benefit derived from the patchwork 
called "New Thought" evolves from certain exercises 
of the mind prescribed by nearly all of them ; they are : 
concentration, relaxation, and passivity. These prac- 
tices tend to serious meditation, to introspection. Per- 
severance in these exercises brings glimpses of an- 
other individuality ; a higher self. This, generally sur- 
prising, discovery creates an irresistible desire to 
know more of the self ; the mystical entity of the dual 
self; the part of the self which is spirit. When this 
acquaintance is made it is realized what Swedenborg 
meant when he said: "We live at the same time in 
the spiritual world and in the natural world." It is 
then, only, that real comprehension is reached of exis- 
tence after the evolutionary crisis called death. It is 
then, only, that idea comes to form as to the shape 
and substance of the discarnated soul. 

This spirit-self is capable of an awakening in the 
mortal body. When this understanding comes it is 
followed by consciousness of possession of a percep- 
tive sense other than those commonly known. If this 
higher sense is developed — which it can be — we at- 
tain direct cognition. When direct cognition is gained 
doubts vanish, because there is no longer anything to 

14 



reason upon. This is the keystone (of knowledge) so 
long rejected by builders (scientists and theologians) 
though there has been a long succession of Hiram 
Abiffs ever ready to recover the long lost ashlar and 
fit it to its proper place. 

In this sense of the spirit-self are included those, to 
the skeptical mind, strange faculties — clairvoyance 
(clear-seeing) and clairaudience (clear-hearing). 
Through this sense, also, and only, we perceive 
whence comes the gift to heal ; the. power of certain 
persons to dominate other human beings, and animals 
as well. These and other powers past the common 
understanding have come to be classed as phenomenal, 
as supernormal, even as supernatural, because, and 
only for that one reason, a long dominant spirit-crush- 
ing materialism restricted inquiry to physical observa- 
tion. And again through this sense, may be discov- 
ered talents and qualities of which the possessor had 
been utterly unconscious, — and so on without end. 

For the benefit of timorous Christians who want 
justification for an introspection that may disclose 
treasures within the self, I will quote Paul, I Cor- 
inthians, XII : 

"The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every 
man to profit withal. 

"For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wis- 
dom ; to another the gift of healing by the same 
Spirit. 

"To another the working of miracles ; to another 
prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to another 
divers kinds of tongues ; to another the interpretation 
of tongues: 

"But all these worketh that one and the self-same 
Spirit, dividing to every man as he will." 

Individual examination made with a clear head; 

15 



without bias; with the mind open to any clue and 
ready to accept facts, proven to be such by personal 
experience, soon brings conviction that a thorough un- 
derstanding of the self entails comprehension of very 
much that an intolerant clerisy and mercenary science 
have labelled "unknowable." 

As the Arabian sage, Abipili, said to inquirers who 
asked for information -concerning the mysteries with 
which he was known to be familiar : "Know thyself : 
in thee is hidden the treasure of treasures." 



TREASURERS THAT CANNOT BE LOST. 

Some folks have queer ideas as to possessions that 
tend to happiness. 

I know one old fellow who considers himself better 
off than any multi-millionaire because he has a bunch 
of letters like the following : 

"If gratitude be the sweet music of the heart when 
its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness, then 
ought mine pour forth one continued anthem of joy 
for all you have done for me and mine. 

"We are living monuments to the Divine Power 
made manifest through you to heal the body, soul and 
spirit ; to uplift the mind, strengthen the heart, and re- 
new faltering courage ; to open the spiritual vision to 
grander possibilities and knowledge of higher laws of 
life, here and hereafter. 

"May the angels, those blessed messengers of light 
and truth, be ever with you while faithfully fulfilling 
your mission of peace and good will on earth/' 



16 



MYSTICAL POWERS IN MANKIND. 

The interest taken in mystical matters is becoming 
more and more intense and is spreading over the 
world at a rate that justifies the term prodigious. Men 
whose achievements in science entitle them to the em- 
inence accorded; some whose labors in the cause of 
religion attest their earnestness and good intention, 
and many others who have earned merited distinction 
in various other fields, are making assertions that, but 
very few years ago, would have been regarded as in- 
credible and preposterous. That is to say, such would 
have been the opinion of a majority that does not take 
cognizance of issues until they begin to affect individ- 
ually. The number of men who are distinguished in 
the professions, who make no secret of being engaged 
in the investigation of alleged debatable phenomena, 
has, during the past three decades, increased from 
scores to hundreds. 

All that was needed to give this great movement 
the tremendous elan in evidence were leaders ; leaders 
whose sanity, integrity, and professional or social 
standing assured protection against intolerant criti- 
cism and ridicule. 

To the Society for Psychical Research must be 
given the credit of compelling a respectful considera- 
tion of things that, though giving promise of indubit- 
able advantages and comforts to mankind, have, and 
that for no good reason, been all too long ignored and 
derided. And yet more credit is due to the Society 
for Psychical Research for having brought to order 

17 



an appalling mass of desultory facts to establish which, 
in accordance with science, required infinite patience 
and unselfish devotion. Slowly, but surely, the So- 
ciety is proving many things to be irrefutable verities 
that so-called "common sense" had declared to be ir- 
rational, impossible, and absurd. 

The old saying: "Men are like sheep/' is well af- 
firmed by this general plunge into mysticism. Titles 
take the place of the bell. 

And what is all this great ado about? In reality 
nothing new has been discovered. All the facts it is 
sought so laboriously to work out, to fit them to be 
recorded as scientifically ascertained, have lain bare 
throughout the ages; and very much more that, as a 
scientific body, even the brave group named will hes- 
itate yet awhile to take up for examination. 

The least lifting of this lid shows that an ineradi- 
cable belief in some phase of mysticism is entertained 
by the major part, if not the whole, of mankind. How 
great the number is of men and women who are at 
present studying and experimenting to gain knowl- 
edge of things beyond the limitations of physical in- 
quiry, is possible to estimate only by those who have 
travelled much and whose association is desired for 
help expected. 

A brief discursive review of certain features of this 
vogue of mysticism will, no doubt, interest many who 
desire information, but who do not know where to 
look for it, or cannot spare the time to wade through 
a voluminous bibliography. 

The word "mysticism" or its equivalent is one of 
the oldest in every language. The most concise defin- 
ition thereof is: "knowledge of spiritual things un- 
attainable by the natural intellect." 

All things that defy physical inquiry are mystical. 

18 



In ancient times the highest distinction was to be 
known as a mystic. 

An increasing tendency to prefer material benefits 
and physical gratifications to spiritual things gradu- 
ally caused the degeneration of mysticism; just as the 
same cause has always exercised the same debasing 
and^ destructive effect in other relations. 

The most celebrated of what are known as the "An- 
cient Mysteries" are the Eleusinian. Though open 
to all Greeks who desired initiation, irrespective of 
class, the secrets of no institution were ever so well 
kept as those pertaining to the Eleusinian Mysteries. 
The best of authorities agree on one point, and that 
is: that no statement concerning the Eleusinian Mys- 
teries, made by a Christian writer, is based on actual 
knowledge. When Greek historians alluded to the 
mysteries of Eleusinia they did so in such guarded 
terms that no information concerning the secret work 
is conveyed thereby that is comprehensible to any one 
who is not well versed in the higher phases of mys- 
ticism. Through agencies that, however, would not 
be accepted as valid testimony by those who demand 
conventional proof, it has been ascertained that the 
highest rites included what is now but imperfectly un- 
derstood by the designation "psychological practices/' 
Communication with discarnated individuals was 
among the principal features of the higher rites. 

Ecclesiastical as well as secular history contains in- 
numerable accounts of wonderful visions, remarkable 
trances, inexplicable influences, apparitions of the 
dead, of the invoking as well as the exorcising of 
demons, and so on without end. If these passages 
are authoritively proclaimed to be without foundation, 
on what ground can we be asked to accept all the rest 
as incontrovertible? 



19 



Necromancy, already described by Homer, was 
practiced throughout a long succession of centuries, 
and "necromancy" means? Necro is the Greek term 
for the dead and mancie designates divination. So 
we find throughout all time a firm belief in help de- 
rived from individuals who have passed through the 
evolutionary ordeal called "death." 

Spiritualism is necromancy in a modernized form. 

Witchcraft entailed the employment of "familiar" 
spirits ; of daemons to work the will, for good or evil, 
of the one possessing the power to command and con- 
trol such immaterial personalities. 

As the idea appears to prevail that witches have al- 
ways been isolated creatures, seldom met, what fol- 
lows will surprise many. 

From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries a 
veritable epidemic of witchcraft swept over Europe 
that, with the measures taken for its suppression, con- 
stitutes the most astounding and revolting part of 
history. 

The burning alive of Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of 
Orleans, in 143 1, will be remembered in connection 
with the succeeding account of easy revenge and the 
facile removal of persons whose existence, for any 
reason whatever, was made to appear objectionable. 

W. Cooke Taylor, L. L. D., Trinity College, Dub- 
lin, is our informant regarding the following fragment 
of history. A reign of terror: 

"In 1484 Pope Innocent contracted all the elements 
of superstitious belief in dsemoniacal possession and 
witchcraft into his celebrated bull, which may be said 
to have created the crime it was designed to check. 
This precious edict was followed by a commentary, 
both theological and juridical, which was soon adopted 
as a text-book by those who eagerly engaged in the 

20 



new profession of exorcist and witchfinder. Pope 
Alexander VI, whose name, Borgia, is identified with 
every criminal abomination, renewed the bull against 
witchcraft. Had Satan been really in the field, he 
might have been astonished at this mutiny in one who 
had so much served his cause. The race of witches 
suddenly appeared to increase and multiply un- 
til it replenished the earth. Spies, informers, 
inquisitors, and exorcists multiplied in the same 
proportion; the rack was in constant exercise 
to extort confessions, and piles were ever ready 
to burn those whom torture had driven to 
confess. In one quarter of the year 15 15 five hundred 
witches were burned in Geneva alone; more than a 
thousand were burned within a year in the diocese of 
Coma. A single inquisitor, Remigius, boasted of hav- 
ing burned nine hundred in Lorraine ; but his perform- 
ances were exceeded by the celebrated informer Trois 
Echelles' who denounced to Charles IX not less than 
three thousand of his pretended associates. Similar 
horrors, and even to a greater extent, were enacted 
in Germany; protestants and catholics actually vied 
with each other in the extent to which they carried 
these atrocities. On the most moderate computation, 
not less than one hundred thousand victims were sac- 
rificed within the empire while the mania lasted." 

The dire consequences of being even only suspected 
of entertaining any belief censored by ecclesiastical 
and monarchial courts placed an effective damper on 
investigations and practices that could, in any way, 
be construed to come under the broad ban ; but time, 
the great mutator, brought liberty to think and to ex- 
press thought and the minds of men were soon again 
busy with the old problems. 

Omitting many interesting correlative particulars, 

21 



we come to the advent of Friedrich Anton Mesmer, 
who was born in Germany in 1734. Mesmer discov- 
ered, or better say rediscovered, what is called "Ani- 
mal Magnetism/' When he had succeeded in formu- 
lating a system of which healing was the principal 
feature, his work came to be known as "Mesmerism." 
Mesmer created quite a stir in his own country and 
Switzerland, but it was not until he established him- 
self in Paris, 1778, that he created the momentous 
furore that gave him world-wide fame and brought 
him a commensurate reward for his achievements. 
Mesmer performed cures that bordered on the mirac- 
ulous. Like every other innovator he was calumni- 
ated and opposed by a swarm of selfish enemies, but 
his works won him a large, intelligent, and influential 
following that included many distinguished men, 
among whom the Marquis de Puysegur came into 
prominence because of his exploitations from which 
evolved a phase in magnetism that, in time, assumed 
an immense importance. That discovery was named 
"Artificial Somnambulism. " It opened an, then ap- 
parently, entirely new and inexhaustible field for re- 
search, investigation and, of course, speculation. The 
French revolution, for the time being, diverted the 
public mind from all except the most material things, 
but when peace was restored the exploitation of 
mesmerism was again taken up with energy. In 
Germany, England, and even Russia, with extent of 
interest in order of countries named, animal mag- 
netism and mesmerism were also extensively inves- 
tigated with remarkable results, which included the 
diagnosing of diseases by persons who had been 
placed in the state called artificial somnambulism. 
Then followed the manifestation of multiple person- 
alities, an intensely interesting phenomenon concern- 

22 



ing which science is yet as much in the dark as it was 
two hundred years ago. 

Intercourse between races far apart not being the 
easy matter that it now is, it was some time before 
European investigators came to know of perform- 
ances by certain sects in India, that, if reports were 
true, would, by comparison, give to mesmerism, with 
all its wonders, the aspect of a very crude attempt 
to imitate a line of extremely ancient practices. Ex- 
tended research and investigation disclosed the fact 
that magnetic manipulation as a means for curing phys- 
ical and mental disorders had been in use far back 
in pagan times and, also, that the higher vision, which 
was the most remarkable feature of artificial som- 
nambulism, was not alone well known in India, but 
that it had been brought to a wonderful perfection by 
a class that for brevity will be called adepts. 

In one respect mesmerism presented a most de- 
cided advantage over Oriental methods; that was the 
very short time in which results became possible to 
the learner — providing one possessed "power." No 
long years of Chela service were required to become, 
in some degree, an operator. All that was necessary 
was to attain the "consciousness" of possessing mag- 
netic power, mastering the comparatively simple 
method of inducing the magnetic coma, and to find 
persons responsive to magnetic influence. The rest 
was a matter of practice only. So easy was it to 
learn to mesmerize that Europe was soon swarming 
with mountebanks who gave more or less astounding 
exhibitions of about the same description as those 
given by the itinerant hypnotists who "toured" this 
country during the vogue of hypnotism. 

Despite all attempts to prove this ostensibly super- 
normal power to be a delusion — a myth — it had, fi- 

23 



nally, to be acknowledged as an incontestible fact; a 
fact that, sooner or later, must be seriously consid- 
ered by all who are in earnest about promoting the 
physical and moral well-being of mankind; and no 
less by those who really desire enlightenment in spir- 
itual directions. 

That this power compelled admission of its reality 
has its strongest confirmation in the aggressive atti- 
tude taken toward it by the Church of Rome and the 
medical branch of science. A better comprehension 
of the Self — the fundamental aim of this order of in- 
cessant search — was, of course, inimical to the inter- 
est of both doctors of the soul and doctors of the 
body; therefore, both these institutions opposed, to 
the utmost, a movement that threatened to diminish 
the sway held over the people. Obviously nothing 
would more rapidly and effectually loosen the firm 
hold obtained than a better understanding of the self. 

During one of those prolonged controversies be- 
tween factions that invariably expose concealed 
weaknesses and errors in theories and dogmas, Sir 
John Herschel indicted an aphorism that, if heeded 
and kept in view, would have expedited the eclaircisse- 
ment of many problems for the solution of which man- 
kind would have reason to be extremely grateful. 
He said: "The perfect observer in any department 
of science will have his eyes opened, as it were, that 
they may be struck at once by any occurrence which, 
according to received theories, ought not to happen; 
for these are the facts which serve as clues to new dis- 
coveries." 

Inability on the part of titled investigators, them- 
selves, to attain consciousness of the power in ques- 
tion, led to so strenuous a denial thereof that, for a 
time, the advances hoped for by a thoroughly con- 

24 



vinced minority received another serious check; but 
that was only temporary. The idea of a possible pos- 
session of attributes superior to the physical had 
taken too strong a hold on the public again to be 
successfully combated, and being steadily stimulated 
by the determined few who never relinquished the 
fight and who adduced more and ever more proof of 
the reality of this power, there has been renewal upon 
renewal of the clamor for elucidations that had to be 
met if the confidence of the masses was to be retained. 
Forced to an extremity, science took up hypnotism. 
Hypnotism was then declared to be capable of all the 
wonders claimed by the magnetists and mesmerists ; 
and it was further asserted that through hypnotism 
science would solve all the mysteries under debate. 
Science also promised to prove that the idea of a mag- 
netic or mesmeric power is a delusion ; a mere pretext 
of charlatans. 

Now, if asked who should be most capable of pre- 
senting an opinion worth having on these perplexing 
questions, I would say that such a view can be of 
value only when it comes from a well-organized body 
of men who possess the constitutive requisites to be 
competent examiners and whose integrity is such that 
neither vanity nor selfish interest in any form can 
warp their judgment. Also, it is required of them 
that they create a popularity that will insure a hearty 
co-operation which is essential, because there must 
be large offerings of material for investigation to 
judge the widely varying aspects of every feature 
to be examined. 

Is there such an organization in existence? There 
is: the Society for Psychical Research. It is the one 
and only organized group of men in modern times 
that has followed the precepts of that keen and in- 

25 



defatigable observer, Sir John Hershel. Fearing 
neither ridicule nor censure, the active members of 
this organization have probed questions and rendered 
judgments in a manner that convinces all who are at 
all familiar with the subjects treated that the utmost 
has been done in strict accordance with recognized 
scientific principles. Not the least important of this 
"utmost" is the result of a thorough investigation of 
the merits of hypnotism. 

At the 77th general meeting of the Society for 
Psychical Research, held January 31, 1896, Professor 
William James, then its president, made some obser- 
vations that are given a place here as good examples 
of the clear perception and unbiased judgment that 
have, from the beginning, distinguished the transac- 
tions of this society and that, also, have won the con- 
fidence of a very peculiar class of people, without 
whose cheerful co-operation and unreserved submis- 
sion to sometimes very trying examinations no ad- 
vance in psychical research is possible. Professor 
James said: 

"The young anthropologists and psychologists who 
will soon have full occupancy of the stage will feel, 
as we have felt, how great a scientific scandal it has 
been to leave a great mass of human experience to 
take its chances between vague tradition and credulity 
on the one hand and dogmatic denial at long range 
on the other, with no body of persons extant who are 
willing and competent to study the matter with both 
patience and rigor. There have been isolated ex- 
perts, it is true, before now. But our society has 
for the first time made their abilities mutually help- 
1 til 

"If I were asked to give some sort of dramatic 
unity to our history, I should say first that we started 

26 



with high hopes that the hypnotic field would yield an 
important harvest, and that these hopes have subsided 
with the general subsidence of what may be called the 
hypnotic wave. * * * 

"Science means, first of all, a certain dispassionate 
method. To suppose that it means a certain set of 
results that one should pin one's faith upon and hug 
forever, is sadly to mistake its genius, and degrades 
the scientific body to the status of a sect. * * * 

"One general reflection, however, I cannot help ask- 
ing you to let me indulge in before I close. It is rela- 
tive to the influence of psychical research upon our 
attitude towards human history. Although, as I said 
before, science, taken in its essence, should stand 
only for a method, and not for any special beliefs, yet 
as habitually taken by its votaries, science has come 
to be identified with a certain fixed general belief, the 
belief that the deeper order of nature is mechanical 
exclusively, and that non-mechanical categories are 
irrational ways of conceiving and explaining even 
such a thing as human life. Now this mechanical ra- 
tionalism, as one may call it, makes, if it becomes one's 
own way of thinking, a violent breach with the ways 
of thinking that have, until our own time, played the 
greatest part in human history. Religious thinking, ethi- 
cal thinking, poetical thinking, teleological, emotional, 
sentimental thinking, what one might call the personal 
view of life to distinguish it from the impersonal and 
mechanical view, and the romantic view of life to dis- 
tinguish it from the rationalistic view, have been, and 
even still are, outside of well-drilled scientific circles, 
the dominant forms of thought. But for mechanical 
rationalism, personality is an insubstantial illusion ; the 
chronic belief of mankind, that events may happen 
for the sake of their personal significances, is an abom- 

27 



ination; and the notions of our grandfathers about 
oracles and omens, divinations and apparitions, mir- 
aculous changes of heart and wonders worked by in- 
spired persons, answers to prayer and providential 
leadings, are a fabric absolutely baseless, a mass of 
sheer untruth. Now, of course, we must all admit 
that the excesses to which the romantic and personal 
view of nature may lead, if wholly unchecked by 
impersonal rationalism, are direful. Central African 
Mumbo-Jumboism is one of unchecked romanticism's 
fruits. One ought accordingly to sympathize with 
that abhorrence of romanticism as a sufficient world- 
theory; one ought to understand that lively intol- 
erance of the least grain of romanticism in the views 
of life of other people, which are such characteristic 
marks of those who follow the scientific professions 
to-day. Our debt to science is literally boundless, and 
our gratitude for what is positive in her teachings 
must be correspondingly immense. But our own 
Proceedings and Journals have, it seems to me, con- 
clusively proved one thing to the candid reader, and 
that is, that the verdict of pure insanity, of gratuitous 
preference for error, of superstition without an ex- 
cuse, which the scientists of our day are led by their 
intellectual training to pronounce upon the entire 
thought of the past, is a most shallow verdict. The 
personal and romantic view of life has other roots 
besides wanton exuberance of imagination and per- 
versity of heart. It is perennially fed by facts of ex- 
perience whatever the ulterior interpretation of those 
facts may prove to be, and at no time in human history 
would it have been less easy than now — at most times 
it would have been much more easy — for advocates 
with a little industry to collect in its favor an array 
of contemporary documents as good as those which 

28 



our publications present. These documents all re- 
late to real experiences of persons. These experi- 
ences have three characters in common; they are ca- 
pricious, discontinuous, and not easily controlled ; they 
require peculiar persons for their production; their 
significance seems to be wholly for personal life. 
Those who preferentially attend to them, and still 
more those who are individually subject to them, not 
only easily may find but are logically bound to find 
in them valid arguments for their romantic and per- 
sonal conception of the world's course. Through my 
slight participation in the investigations of the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research, I have become ac- 
quainted with numbers of persons of this sort, for 
whom the very word science has become a name of 
reproach, for reasons that I now both understand and 
respect. It is the intolerance of science for such 
phenomena as we are studying, her peremptory denial 
either of their existence or of their significance ex- 
cept as proofs of man's absolute innate folly, that has 
set science so apart from the common sympathies of 
the race. I confess that it is on this, its humanizing 
mission, that our society's best claim to the gratitude 
of our generation seems to depend. We have restored 
continuity to history. We have shown some reason- 
able basis for the most superstitious aberrations of the 
foretime. We have bridged the chasm, healed the 
hideous rift that science, taken in a certain narrow 
way, has shot into the human world. I will even go 
one step further. When from our present advanced 
standpoint we look back upon the past stages of 
human thought, whether it be scientific thought or 
theological thought, we are amazed that a Universe 
which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a com- 
plication should ever have seemed to any one so little 

29 



and plain a thing. Whether it be Descartes' world 
or Newton's; whether it be that of the materialists 
of the last century or the Bridgewater treatises of 
our own; it always looks the same to us — incredibly 
perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell's, Faraday's, 
Mill's, and Darwin's consciousness of their respective 
subjects are already beginning to put on an infantile 
and innocent look. Is it, then, likely that the science 
of our own day will escape the common doom, that 
the minds of its votaries will never look old-fashioned 
to the grandchildren of the latter? It would be folly 
to suppose so. Yet, if we are to judge by the analogy 
of the past, when our science once becomes old-fash- 
ioned it will be more for its omissions of facts, for 
its ignorance of whole ranges and orders of complex- 
ity in the phenomena to be explained, than for any 
fatal lack in its spirit and principles. The spirit and 
principles of science are mere affairs of method ; there 
is nothing in them that need hinder science from 
dealing successfully with a world in which personal 
forces are the starting point of new effects. The only 
form of thing that we directly encounter, the only ex- 
perience that we concretely have, is our own personal 
life. The only complete category of our thinking, our 
professors of philosophy tell us, is the category of per- 
sonality, every other category being one of the ab- 
stract elements of that. And this systematical denial 
on science's part of personality as a condition of 
events, this rigorous belief that in its own essential 
and innermost nature our world is a strictly imper- 
sonal world, may, conceivably, as the whirligig of 
time goes round, prove to be the very defect that our 
descendants will be most surprised at in our own 
boasted science, the omission that, to our eyes, will 
most tend to make it look perspectiveless and short." 

30 



During all the years intervening since the forego- 
ing address was delivered, I have felt that this clear 
and masterful view should be given a wider circulation 
than it has had through the official publication of 
the society and I rejoice over the present opportunity 
to aid its greater distribution. 

Now to note some points of special interest here. 
After an exhaustive investigation of the claims made 
for hypnotism the society's hopes "that the hypnotic 
field would yield an important harvest subsided with 
the general subsidence of the hypnotic wave." The 
gist of that statement is repeated because it bears a 
tremendous significance. That declaration is taken as 
a final judgment by a large majority of competent in- 
vestigators. It is a refutation of false assertions 
made doubly conclusive by the fact that the hopes of 
the society being centered on hypnotism, no effort was 
spared to make hypnotism serve as a means to solve 
problems that it had been affirmed by its most noted 
exponents that it would solve. No doubt, no preju- 
dice, no antagonistic feeling of any kind, in any way, 
opposed results to be expected ; but these results were 
not achieved. The obvious absence of any possible 
motive to traduce any procedure tending to advance 
the aims of the society gives Professor James 5 ut- 
terance its fullest weight. 

If it were not for the vexing thought of much val- 
uable time lost, recollections of the hypnosis-craze 
would afford no end of amusement. Among the 
causes for merriment the principal one is that so many 
wise old students, who ought to have known better, 
allowed themselves to be halted in progress-making 
until the dullest observer could not fail to see that 
hypnotism is only another makeshift of the material- 
istic physicist to dodge the insistent demand for an 

31 



elucidation of a supernormal power that can no longer 
be denied. 

Alluding to certain experiences, Professor James 
says: "They (these experiences) require peculiar 
persons for their production/' Further on, he says: 
"I have become acquainted with a number of persons 
of this sort for whom the very word 'science' has be- 
come a name of reproach for reasons that I now un- 
derstand and respect." 

That frank statement marks the difference between 
what science should be and what, unfortunately, it has 
so long proved to be, to its own great detriment. 

The line of investigation to which the society is now 
devoting much attention is the ability of the living to 
commune with the spirits of the dead. Among the 
most illustrious members of the S. P. R. are sev- 
eral who, as individuals, have, long ago, pub- 
licly avowed their absolute conviction that in- 
tercourse with spirits is feasible. That con- 
clusion being based on personal experiences admits 
of no doubt whatever. Moreover, the society, as an 
official body, has had this phase of mysticism under 
examination for a number of years and reports made 
confirm individual conclusions. 

Now, if all this vast and costly search is in turn 
searched for its stimulus, the a priori is found to be — 
and that beyond contravention — the irresistible impulse 
of all who really think, in contradistinction to those 
v/ho only think that they think, to fathom the myster- 
ies of the self. 

Above all desire for knowledge whereby to obtain 
material benefits, there is a longing for indubitable 
evidence of an existence after the cessation of physi- 
cal life. Assurance of immortality is far less urgently 
sought than proof of immediate continuance of the 

32 



self in a recognizable form and capable of exercising 
an intelligence. The word "soul" is a very vague 
term. It lacks the most desired essential — individu- 
ality. Here we find the cause of the powerful fascina- 
tion exercised by spiritism. Spiritism holds that the 
released spirit is an ethereal counterpart of the known 
self ; that this spirit-self is not deprived of its identity, 
powers of perception and will ; and proof is piling up 
very fast to the effect that there is ample foundation 
for this highly attractive belief. 

Every student deserving the name, knows that the 
admonition "Know Thyself" was given to all who 
applied to the old mystics for help to penetrate the so- 
called mysteries. That was the invariable answer of 
Thales, of Abipili, the Arabian sage, of Socrates and 
many others. An understanding worthy to be called 
such, of all things that are rightly ascribed to mystic- 
ism, must have its beginning within the self. There is a 
latent something within the self of which one must be- 
come conscious before comprehension of any of the 
real mysteries can be attained, even in part. 

What is that strange, ordinarily unresponsive some- 
thing? 

Clues thereto have been plentiful enough, but are 
unheeded. 

Among the treasured writings of one of the wise 
men of Persia is found the following: "From the 
remotest antiquity mankind as a whole have always 
been convinced of the existence of a personal spiritual 
entity within the personal physical man." 

That means : that within the self that we know, that 
we see reflected in a mirror, is another self — a spirit- 
ual self — of which the vast majority who carry this 
mystic self from the cradle to the grave know abso- 
lutely nothing. Hints from out of the dim past and 

33 



a long succession of occurrences not explicable by 
any process of ordinary reasoning led to interminable 
speculations on a duality of man— an ego. In the 
not very distant past Swedenborg, who was a true 
mystic and seer, as well as a good Christian, said: 
"We are at the same time spirit and mortal." Simi- 
larity of ideas on this subject is found in all parts 
of the earth and a by no means laborious search soon 
reveals that many who were refused a hearing could 
— and gladly would — have furnished proof of this 
duality if the opportunity to do so had not been denied 
them. 

The spirit-stifling control by organizations dom- 
inated by lust of power and wealth has lasted long, 
but it is drawing to an end. 

Dodging issues as one may, if an investigator is 
really in earnest he is bound to fall back on spiritual 
sources for help to knowledge that cannot be obtained 
by physical means. If possessing the redeeming qual- 
ity of candor, even the most obdurate skeptic will ad- 
mit that what is back of the barrier set up by the physi- 
cists is best worth knowing. 

During many years of labor in this field I have col- 
lected a mass of testimony in support of my own con- 
viction reached by experience, that the spirit-self 
within the physical self is an incontestable reality; 
that this spirit-self, under certain conditions, can and 
will manifest itself in various ways; for instance: by 
procuring information that could not be obtained by 
physical expedients; by appearance at remote places 
when the physical body, inert, was under observation ; 
distance being no obstacle to the manifestation of this 
temporary separation of the two selves. 

Is it not at this very point that the right path to 
the most desired knowledge has been so strangely 



missed? One of the most learned men of Germany 
once made the remark: "What occurs by chance, 
science should do by rule/' However astonishing and 
incredible the assertion may appear to many, it is, 
nevertheless, absolutely true that these marvelous 
things have been done by rule, and that by men whose 
word is as good as that of any man's who is implicitly 
believed mainly because of his titles. 

Professor James speaks of persons who are indis- 
pensable to inquiry into psychological problems as 
"peculiar/' He is right; they are peculiar. One 
peculiarity is of especial interest here. The more val- 
uable a person would be as an object of study and for 
experimentation, the more reluctant that person will 
be found to lend himself or herself for such purposes. 
This prying into the innermost recesses of the self 
is abhorrent to all sensitive natures and the persons 
in question are sensitive in a double sense. Those 
of most worth for purposes of investigation are gen- 
erally extremely sensitive in the ordinary meaning 
of that term and in the psychological sense as well. 
As there is nothing of which less is known than the 
peculiarities of the persons alluded to by Professor 
James, what follows will be read with interest. Pos- 
sessing certain qualities, some of these persons are 
called "sensitives," a term adopted by the French in- 
vestigators who first exploited mesmerism. 

A brief break here will be pardoned for the infor- 
mation that is thereby admitted and which fits in better 
at this point than it would elsewhere. 

The pioneer students who constituted Mesmer's fol- 
lowing in Paris formulated the entire list of terms yet 
in use all over the world to designate certain condi- 
tions, states, qualities, and special gifts of persons, 
phenomena occurring in the practice of magnetism, 

35 



and everything else pertaining to this work that 
needed naming. 

The hypnotists, though professing to supersede, 
with Dr. Braid's innovation, (hypnotism) magnetism, 
mesmerism, and all attendant phenomena thereof, did 
not hesitate about availing themselves of the mesmer- 
ists' entire vocabulary. By this more than questionable 
appropriation they were materially aided in making 
the ignorant believe — for a time at least — that there 
is virtually no difference between magnetism, mes- 
merism, and hypnotism. Then, being sponsored by 
"regular" science, hypnotism was to be considered 
as das ding an sich, or, as best expressed in slang, 
"the whole thing." 

To resume: The term "sensitive" applied to a 
person means one who is more than ordinarily sen- 
sitive to magnetic influence; one who can easily be 
put into the state called "magnetic sleep," or "mag- 
netic coma." Now is to be noted that there is little 
apparent difference between the phenomena mani- 
fested in the first stages of magnetic coma and the 
first stages of hypnosis. In both cases, ordinarily, ap- 
parently nothing more occurs than obtaining domi- 
nance, by the operator, over the will of the person 
under either influence. What furthermore led to the 
error that there is no difference between magnetism 
and hypnotism, is that some of the hypnotists exer- 
cised a magnetic influence, by reason of which fact, 
though possibly unrecognized by the operator him- 
self, or denied for a purpose, a yet closer apparent- 
similarity was established. 

Mainly owing to the prevailing ignorance, many 
who would have become excellent "lucides," meaning 
sensitives in whom the higher vision would have been 
developed under the manipulation of a qualified mag- 

36 



netist, have been ruined in this regard, by being 
forced into a deep hypnotic trance. It must here be 
admitted that a magnetist with coarse animal pro- 
pensities is equally likely to affect a prospectively fine 
sensitive disastrously. It is, moreover, a fact that a 
highly magnetic human brute is the most dangerous 
creature living. Not until science condescends to 
recognize the tremendous influence exercised through 
these imponderable agencies, will there be any im- 
portant change in the annals of misdemeanor, crime, 
and sin, despite all efforts of reformers. 

No one who has not witnessed the agony of a really 
fine sensitive at the mere approach of an individual 
who is, magnetically, repellent, can form any idea of 
what this multiplied sensitiveness entails. Professor 
James is certainly right in calling these people pecu- 
liar. 

Sensitives, who are adapted for the highest phases 
of psychological work, and who are developed to any 
extent, become more and more inaccessible for pur- 
poses of investigation, because, in the higher states 
these persons become so spiritualized, so completely 
dominated by the spirit-self, that they dread more 
and ever more to reveal what becomes known to them, 
to any one who is not en rapport with them in the 
spiritual sense, as well as in every other respect. 

The foregoing facts being admitted, we find here 
a line of clues to discoveries of far greater value than 
any made in physical science, unless the rating be left, 
as it has been all too long, to the crassest of material- 
ists. 

Now will follow a statement that, probably, will 
appear incredible to many, but which, nevertheless, 
is based upon facts ascertained during many years of 
experience and supported by the testimony of men 

37 



who are widely accepted as authority, who have been 
fortunate enough to have found similar rare oppor- 
tunities to observe the extraordinary phenomena to be 
described. 

In the highest degree of this so-called psychological 
development the spirit-self of the sensitive is brought 
into direct intercourse with discarnated individuals. 
No one who has ever been present at an indubitably 
genuine communion with spirits through a highly de- 
veloped lucide will doubt the reality of such inter- 
course thereafter. In this phase of the work the 
spirit yet confined in the body converses with spirits 
that are entirely released from the corporeal organism. 
The most surprising feature of such a performance, 
to an inexperienced witness, is the apparent natural- 
ness thereof. 

The emphasis laid on the adjective "entirely" before 
"released" in the foregoing paragraph is to be noted. 
It is intended to distinguish the total severance of a 
spirit from the physical body, in contradistinction to 
a temporary separation of the two selves. 

Probably no assertion would tax the credulity of 
the inexperienced more than to say that the spirit- 
self of certain persons can be temporarily detached 
from their bodies and that the freed spirit can be in- 
duced to serve, in many ways, the one to whom it 
yields obedience. 

It may here be remarked that nothing astounds the 
earnest tyro in psychical research more than the abun- 
dance of testimony to be had for the seeking, in af- 
firmation of all matters touched upon in this article. 

The point again brought into view is: has not the 
direct path to the source of all this much-desired 
knowledge been missed? The question is: where? 

An isolated but well-informed minority maintain 

33 



that if the cultivation of "lucide sensitives" had been 
pursued with the same diligence and persistence that 
have characterized much less important endeavors, 
very much more would now be generally known of the 
mysteries of the self, and this, all will agree, is the 
knowledge most desired. 

Evidence of a colossal ignorance regarding these 
matters is had in a question frequently asked by per- 
sons whose interest is keen but who have taken no 
trouble to inform themselves. That question is: 
"What is the difference between a lucide who is 
able to converse with spirits, and a spiritualistic 
medium?" To many this distinction appears to be of 
the kind in which there is no real difference ; but that 
is an error of very large proportion. 

In the "lucide sensitive" the spirit-self has been 
aroused and has become active. This spirit exercises 
its own higher faculties of perception and is often, if 
not always, able to select its sources of information 
and help; while the "medium" is merely a passive 
instrument through which spirits communicate with 
the living. 

If there were nothing worse in mediumship than 
serving in the subordinate capacity of a speaking 
trumpet, there would be less occasion to question the 
advisability of spreading the propaganda of spiritu- 
alism. But it is said of spiritualism, and not without 
some reason, that mediumship is too closely related to 
"possession" — to "obsession" — to appeal to the more 
intelligent who note this analogy and the possible 
danger. 

A medium is "controlled" by one or several spirits. 

A person who desires to become a medium "sits in 
a circle for development." Most frequently this sitting 
for development takes place in the residence of a 

39 



professional medium where such circles are formed 
on stated days and for admission to which the only 
credential needed is a dollar bill. 

In view of the unqualified assurance of the distin- 
guished men in this country and England that the 
reality of mediumship admits of no further question- 
ing, it behooves to inquire what those who are con- 
verted to this belief and who want to test their adapta- 
bility for mediumship are likely to encounter by fre- 
quenting public circles. It may be said that the ma- 
jority who attend these public seances hope, and en- 
deavor, to become mediumistic. 

First to be considered in connection with the in- 
discriminately mixed crowds assembled at these pub- 
lic seances is the danger of physical infection. Com- 
plete physical and mental relaxation, passivity, a re- 
ceptive state, is demanded if one desires to become 
mediumistic. Under the prevailing influence many 
are brought into that state involuntarily. Under the 
powerful magnetic current generated in such a circle 
there is, moreover, danger of even a far worse con- 
tamination than a merely physical one. 

Mediumship is only attained in a state of absolute 
nonresistance that entails the complete surrender of 
the will. Virtually the prospective medium, through 
the influence exercised, is brought into about the same 
state of one dominated by a hypnotist or mesmerist, 
but with this very marked difference, that one can 
know something of an operator in physical form, 
but of the spirit who assumes control, in most in- 
stances at least, absolutely nothing is known until 
control has already been obtained. 

To make this plainer. A person who sits in a pub- 
lic circle for development invites the first-comer- 
spirit to take control. Now if only the good and wise 

40 



passed to spirit-life, such a surrender might be ap- 
proved; but even the most zealous spiritualist will ad- 
mit that those who have been bad characters in the 
flesh do not shed their vileness with their bodies. 
That being admitted, what of evil may there not re- 
sult from a promiscuous invitation to take an un- 
restricted command of the self? 

Attendance at a number of these open circles fur- 
thermore leads one to believe that a good many very bad 
actors and jokers inhabit spirit-land and that these 
must be ever alert for opportunities to control 
the fools who yield themselves so recklessly to an 
unknown dominance, for one is likely to hear a "con- 
trol" announce himself as the spirit of, for instance, 
George Washington, or Benjamin Franklin, or other 
departed eminent, and then begin a harangue that for 
absurdity and misuse of words has no parallel ; that 
the person alleged to be present as a spirit would not 
have been guilty of if maudlin drunk. 

A closer acquaintance with any considerable num- 
ber who have become mediumistic in the haphazard 
way described will convince any one who possesses 
any kind of sense that the riffraff in the spirit realm 
lose no opportunity to fasten upon willing victims, to 
play pranks on the credulous, and to do other things 
that are much worse. 

There is, of course, another side to this, as there 
is to about all else. Here again, as in the case of 
the "sensitives," the indubitably genuine, inspiring, 
and convincing is not for the vulgar gaze. Neither 
social status nor wealth open the doors where these 
higher phenomena occur; the place, be it a garret or 
a palace, is hallowed ; it is a shrine from which idle 
curiosity is debarred. 

Concluding, I will make a statement that, I trust, will 

41 



be found of value. I am well past the age when mod- 
ern science says men should be slaughtered. I have 
led what is called a strenuous life from early boy- 
hood to the present. No delusion has ever been per- 
mitted to cloud my reason. I fought against all pos- 
sible hallucination to such an extent that I rejected 
proof upon proof until repetition after repetition left 
no room for doubt. I had one gift that need not be 
named here, that brought me opportunities for ob- 
servation that come to few. My work on earth is 
nearly done. When my time comes to pass on I will 
go cheerfully in the full conviction that I will be of 
far greater use to mankind than I have been while 
incarnate. A summary of my conclusions follows : 

We do not become spirits ; we are already spirits in 
part. If we are to know anything of spiritual things 
that knowledge must be acquired through spiritual 
perception. That perception can be exercised only by 
the spirit part of the self. This spirit entity remains 
inert until it is aroused. That may occur by chance, 
as, for instance, an unlooked for high emotion. It 
may be awakened by a person who is competent to 
do this wonderful thing ; and, also, it may be brought 
about by self-endeavor; by deep meditation on the 
mysteries of the self and learning how to induce the 
state in which the spirit finds it easiest to manifest 
itself. 

When "consciousness of the higher self" is attained 
and the spirit begins to respond, then comes an en- 
tirely new interest in life; an ever clearer under- 
standing of things that, before, seemed incomprehen- 
sible. If the new acquaintance is as assiduously cul- 
tivated as it certainly deserves to be, then come re- 
wards that are above any material estimate. The 
poorest in earthly affairs who brings this dormant self 

42 



into action — into harmonious co-operation with the ob- 
jective self — attains a physical well-being, a mental 
satisfaction and spiritual comfort unknown to those 
who hope to find the components of happiness a se- 
quence to the acquisition of wealth and worldly fame. 
Moreover, none who succeed in establishing any de- 
gree of intimacy with the higher self fear death. 
They come to know enough of the future life to wel- 
come the change, but without temptation to hasten 
that evolutionary ordeal. 

I maintain that all that is best worth knowing, 
facts relating to the physical body, the mind, future 
existence, and many other things classed as "unknow- 
able" will be revealed through sensitives of a high 
order. The best results will be obtained when the sen- 
sitive has been en rapport in every sense, with a spirit 
with whom a spiritual relation was already well es- 
tablished while both inhabited material bodies. Ob- 
viously, the longer such a spiritual bond has existed 
the less danger of error there will be on the part of 
the one remaining incarnated; and the greater, also, 
will be the willingness on the part of the liberated 
one to assist the one left on earth. Yet more certain 
will be the best results if both have long had the same 
aim — to fit themselves thoroughly to do the utmost 
good to mankind. 

Concluding: I declare it my firm belief that it is 
intended that I shall so serve humanity through Elf a, 
of whose qualities as a sensitive of the highest order 
and most versatile kind, none entertain a doubt who 
have ever witnessed her achievements. 



43 



HEALERS IN HISTORY— PART I. 

EUROPE. 

Justin Martyr lived to A. D. 161. Speaking to 
the unbelieving Jews, he says: "Many demoniacs all 
over the world, and in your own Metropolis, whom 
no other exorcist, conjurer or sorcerers have cured, 
these have many of our Christians cured, adjuring by 
the name of Christ, and still do cure. * * * With 
us may be seen both males and females with gifts 
from the spirit of God." 

Irenaeus, who suffered martyrdom A. D. 202, 
says : "Some most certainly and truly cast out demons, 
so that frequently those persons themselves that were 
cleansed from wicked spirits, believed and were re- 
ceived in the Church. Others have the knowledge of 
things to come, as also visions and prophetic commu- 
nications. Others heal the sick by the imposition of 
hands and restore them to health." 

Tertullian, in the third century, says : "We had 
a right, after what was said by St. John, to expect 
prophesyings ; and we not only acknowledge these 
spiritual gifts, but we are permitted to enjoy the gifts 
of a prophetess. There is a sister among us who pos- 
sesses the faculty of revelation. She commonly, dur- 
ing religious service on the Sabbath, falls into a crisis 
or trance. She then has intercourse with angels, sees 
and hears divine mysteries, and administers medicine 
to such as desire it." 

St. Cyprian, a pupil of Tertullian, says : "There is 
no measure or rule in the dispensation of the gifts of 

44 



heaven, as in those of the gifts of earth. The Spirit 
is poured out liberally, without limits or barriers. It 
flows without stop; it overflows without stint. By 
this they cleansed unwise and impure souls, restored 
men to spiritual and bodily health, and drove forth 
demons who had made violent lodgment in men." 

Origen, contemporary with St. Cyprian, says : 
"And some give evidence of their having received 
through their faith a marvelous power by the cures 
they perform, invoking no other name over those who 
need their help than that of the God of all things and 
of Jesus, along with a mention of His history. For 
by these means we too have seen many persons freed 
from grievous calamities and from distraction of 
mind and madness, and countless other ills which 
could not be cured by other men." 

Clement, in his "Directions for Visiting the Sick 
and Afflicted," says : "Let them, therefore, with fast- 
ing and prayer, make their intercessions and not 
with the well arranged and fitly ordered words of 
learning, but as men who have received the gift of 
healing confidently" 

Theodore of Mopsueste, (429) says: "Many 
heathen amongst us are being healed by Christians 
from whatever sickness they have, so abundant are 
miracles in our midst." 

St. Ambrose, who lived to the end of the fourth cen- 
tury, in his fourth epistle, says : "You know ye your- 
selves saw that many were cleansed from evil spirits ; 
very many on touching with their hands the garments 
of the Saints were delivered from the infirmities which 
oppressed them. The miracles of the old time are 
come again, when by the advent of the Lord Jesus a 
fuller grace was shed on earth." 

St. Augustine, who lived to A. D. 430, bears am- 

45 



pie testimony to the continuance of miraculous power. 
He relates the case of Innocentia, a religious woman, 
who in her sleep was ordered to go to the font where 
she had been baptized, and there to mark with a 
cross her breast affected by a cancer pronounced by 
the physicians to be incurable, and that it was imme- 
diately healed. He also relates twenty miracles per- 
formed at the shrine of St. Stephen within two years ; 
one of a child restored to life after it was pronounced 
dead by the physicians. 

St. Jerome, also living in the fifth century, relates 
numerous miracles, such as the restoration of sight to 
a woman who had been blind ten years ; the instant 
cure of the bites of serpents ; the cure of paralytic per- 
sons, etc. 

Sulpicius, in his "Dialogues and Life of St. Mar- 
tin/' also in the fifth century, relates a number of 
miracles which he professes to have witnessed him- 
self. 

Throughout the whole series of historians of the 
church in those ages the affirmation is the same. 

St. Hildegard, (12th century) became the oracle 
of princes and bishops by her spiritual insight which 
amounted to actual prophecy. She possessed the 
same faculty as Zschokke in more recent times, of 
reading the innermost thoughts of others. The record 
of her cures is very extensive and includes a variety 
of diseases, some of which she cured at a distance. 
She said that her spirit vision knew no bounds; that 
it extended itself over various nations, however dis- 
tant. "But these things/' she added, "I do not per- 
ceive with my outer eyes, nor hear with my external 
ears, nor through the thoughts of my heart, nor by 
means of any comparison of my five senses; but in 
my soul alone." 

St. Bernard is recorded as having restored the 

46 



sight of blind people and to have given lame persons 
the use of their limbs. At Cologne he is reported to 
have healed twelve lame and to have caused three 
dumb persons to speak; ten who were deaf to hear. 
When he himself was ill., St. Laurence and St. Bene- 
dict are said to have appeared to him, and to have 
cured him by touching the parts affected. 

The Sts. Margaret, Catherine, Elizabeth, and 
the martyrs Cosmas and Damianus belong to the same 
class. Among the wonderful cures wrought by them 
was that performed on the Emperor Justinian who 
had been pronounced incurable. 

St. Odilia is reported as having embraced a leper 
who was shunned by all men, warming him and re- 
storing him to health. 

Saints of the old British Church — St. Colum- 
bo, St. Columbanus, Aidan, Scotus Erigena, Claude 
Clement and others, possessed the same divine power. 
Edward, the Confessor, cured diseases by touch. 
From that time dates the practice continued until 
more recent time of the Kings of England "touching" 
for the King's Evil, scrofula. 

Philip I of France was a gifted healer and his 
inheritors extended the practice to the time of the re- 
volution. 

The Princes of Hapsburg. Among the German 
princes this power was ascribed to the house of Haps- 
burg. They were renowned for curing stammering 
with a kiss. 

The Salm adores and Ensalm adores of Spain 
were widely celebrated for healing all kinds of diseases 
by prayer and their breath. 

Evidently miracles, the "Power of the Spirit" exer- 
cised through man in healing the sick, did not cease 
with the close of the apostolic epoch. 

Because certain historians state that miracles were 

47 



not recognized by the church after the third century, 
by no means establishes as a fact that no cures were 
wrought in the same manner since that time. Many 
noted thinkers and indefatigable investigators main- 
tain that the denial of miracles was due to the fact 
that, the church as a body, having failed to preserve 
its spiritual integrity, was deprived of the accompany- 
ing gifts and powers. 

A vast mass of evidence is certainly available to 
prove that wherever there has been a revival of true 
faith such revivals have, invariably, been rewarded 
with indubitable manifestations of the 'Tower of the 
Spirit" — notably in its marvelous effects in the restor- 
ation of the sorely afflicted whose cases had, as they 
do yet, "baffled" the physicians. 

As innumerable books, to be found in every public 
library, contain a vast mass of similar testimony to 
fill gaps in this synopsis, and the interest is greater in 
newer manifestations of the healing power, the brief- 
est mention only will be made of a few exempli gratia 
before passing to a period, from which on the record- 
ing of important occurrences was not confined to a 
limited number of scribes who, moreover, were not 
always at liberty to describe things as they saw them 
with their own eyes. 

The Waldenses, who are credited with "keeping 
the light of faith aglow during the dark ages," can 
not be passed over here. 

From the "Confessio" of the leader, Johannis Luka- 
witz Waldensis, (1431) the following "article" is 
transcribed : 

"Therefore, concerning this anointing of the sick, 
we hold as an article of faith, and profess sincerely 
from the heart, that sick persons, when they ask it, 
may be lawfully anointed with the anointing oil by 



one who joins them in praying that it may be effica- 
cious to the healing of the body according to the 
design and end and effect mentioned by the apostles ; 
and we profess that such an anointing performed ac- 
cording to the apostolic design and practice will be 
healing and profitable. " 

Wherever there was a rekindling of simple, true 
faith, from every such place comes testimony of 
"power" to heal the sick. The Moravians had it; so 
the Huguenots ; the Covenanters ; Friends, Baptists, 
and old-time Methodists. The preaching of the Wes- 
leys and of Whitefield (England 1740-50) were always 
attended by demonstrations of the "Spirit" and 
"Power" asserted to be akin to the manifestations in 
apostolic days. 

When Bishop Warburton, of the English Church, 
attacked Wesley's belief in miracles, especially miracu- 
lous cures, Wesley replied : — "What I have seen 
with my own eyes I am bound to believe ; the Bishop 
can believe or not, as he may please." 

The Shakers in America (from about 1776) 
gave abundant proof of spiritual power. There are 
numerous well-attested cases of marvelous healing to 
their credit. 

Valentine Greatrakes (Ireland, 1660) is a 
prominent personage in the history of healing. He 
served as lieutenant in the army and on retiring from 
the service was made Justice of the Peace. 

In a letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle he states that 
in the year 1662 he had an impulse, or strong persua- 
sion in his mind, for which he could not account. It 
was that the gift of healing the "King's Evil" 
(scrofula) was conferred upon him. He also men- 
tioned it to his wife„ but she thought it a strange 
imagination. 

49 



However, Mrs. Greatrakes had acted, as many 
ladies then did, as doctress to her humble neighbors, 
and a tenant of the Hon. Robert Boyle's brother, the 
Earl of Burlington and Cork, brought his son to her. 
Mrs. Greatrakes found him very much afflicted with 
King's Evil about the neck and face. She told her hus- 
band thereof, who thereupon said she should see 
whether it was a mere fancy that possessed him. He 
laid his hands on the afflicted parts, prayed to God to 
heal the boy, and in but few days found him wonder- 
fully improved ; and on the second application he was 
perfectly cured. 

He continued this practice for three years, not med- 
dling with any other distempers, but the ague be- 
coming frequent in the neighborhood, he felt impressed 
to cure it and succeeded to his own astonishment. 
He then extended his practice to all kinds of com- 
plaints and cured great numbers — but not all. 

His fame spread all over Ireland and in 1666 the 
Earl of Orrery persuaded him to come to England to 
cure Lady Conway. It was remarkable that in Lady 
Conway's case he could do nothing; but during his 
abode at Ragley, the seat of Lord Conway, where he 
remained a month, he laid his hands on more than a 
thousand persons from the country round and per- 
formed many wonderful cures. The Bishop of Dro- 
more was there most of the time, and bears strong 
testimony to the marvelous cures of Greatrakes. "I 
have seen" — says the Bishop — "pains fly strangely be- 
fore his hands, till he had chased them out of the 
body; dimness of sight cleared, and deafness cured 
by his touch. Twenty persons, at divers times, in fits 
of the falling sickness were brought to themselves, so 
as to tell where their sickness was, and then he hath 
pursued it until he had driven it out at some extreme 

50 



point. Running sores of the King's Evil were dried 
up, and kernels brought to suppuration by his hands ; 
grievous sores of many months' date, in a few days 
healed, obstructions and stoppings removed and can- 
cerous knots dissolved in breasts. 

At Worcester Greatrakes' success was equally re- 
markable, and by command of Lord Arlington he 
came to Court, (London,) — he then took a house in 
Lincoln's Inn-Fields and for many months continued 
there, performing the most extraordinary cures. As 
he was assailed, as a matter of course, by all sorts of 
calumnies, especially from the medical men, he pub- 
lished an account, before leaving London, of all whom 
he had cured, giving the name and abode of each 
individual. Besides, the most distinguished men, 
physicians among others, attested, from personal 
knowledge, his cures. 

Now we come to another of the most conspicuous 
figures in the history of healers; Johann Josef Gass- 
ner, a Suabian priest. 

Father Gassner created an intense excitement 
during the latter half of the 18th century. Many re- 
ports of his work as a healer, by eye-witnesses, are in 
existence. In the year 1758 he was the clergyman of 
Kloesterle, where by his exorcisms he became so cele- 
brated that he attracted a vast crowd of people. The 
flocking of the sick from Switzerland, the Tyrol, and 
Suabia is said to have been so great that the number of 
invalids present was often more than a thousand, 
many being obliged to seek shelter under improvised 
tents. 

Gassner's mode of work is described as follows : 
"He usually selected a room that gave him a window 
on his left hand, a large crucifix being placed at his 
right. With his face turned toward the patient, he 

51 



touched the ailing part and commanded that the 
disease manifest itself, which usually followed. By 
calling on the name of Jesus and exhorting the faith 
of the patient he drove out the disease. But — it was 
stipulated — that every one desiring to be healed must 
believe. Gassner often made use of magnetic manip- 
ulations. He would cover the affected part with his 
hands; then stroke both head and neck and down the 
spine. 

Johann Richter, an inn-keeper at Royen in 
Silesia, cured many thousand sick persons in an open 
field near his house, by laying on of his hands. 
His fame also became so great that rich and poor 
came from afar to seek relief from him for their suf- 
ferings. 

To keep somewhere near chronological order w T e 
must now turn to France for an exemplification of 
miracle working that, not being operated through 
human intercession, is really not in place here, but is 
too interesting to be omitted. 

The Abbe Paris, a Jansenist, was buried in the 
churchyard St. Medard, Paris, in 1727. Soon mir- 
acles were reported as being worked at his tomb. The 
excitement became so intense that, in 1731, the burial 
ground was crowded from morning until night by 
the sick and many were cured. Instigated by the 
Jesuits, the bitter foes of the Jansenists, the chief 
magistrate, for a time, caused all avenues leading to 
the tomb of the Abbe ito be closed. During that in- 
terim, one day, was found written on the wall: "By 
the order of the King: God is forbidden to work 
miracles here." 

Hume, who stood committed to the "impossibility 
of miracles'' by prior printed convictions, nevertheless 
was fair enough in his "Philosophical Essays," page 

52 






I95> to say: "There surely was never so great a 
number of miracles ascribed to one person, as those 
which were lately said to have been wrought in France 
upon the tomb of the Abbe Paris. The curing of the 
sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the 
blind, were talked of everywhere, as the effects of the 
holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, 
many of the miracles were immediately proved upon 
the spot, before judges of unquestioned credit and 
distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent 
theater that is now in the world. Nor is this all, a 
relation of them was published and dispersed every- 
where; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, 
supported by the civil magistrates and determined 
enemies to those opinions in whose favor the miracles 
were said to have been wrought, ever able to refute 
them." 

Hume made that statement on the ground that it is 
historic evidence. Many men whose integrity cannot 
be disputed investigated these miraculous cures. In 
many instances attestations were obtained from physi- 
cians, affirming that patients restored to health had 
been considered past all human help. All open-minded 
persons declared that the many cures wrought before 
their eyes were better proof of the power of the spirit 
than any testimony seventeen centuries old. 

"Why should we accept on hearsay as truth what 
happened 1740 years ago, and reject as false what we 
observe daily with our own senses?" That was the 
dominant question of that time ; of those who had the 
courage of their own conviction and who did not fear 
to express their opinions. 

Interwoven with the accounts of the Abbe Paris 
miracles is a record of most villainous expedients re- 
sorted to by the Jesuits to contradict the verity of 

53 



these occurrences. Men and women who had been 
cured were menaced with inquisitorial punishment to 
compel them to make public denial that they had been 
healed by Jansenist miracles. 

In the succeeding century France was given an- 
other indubitable manifestation of the pow T er of the 
spirit, of true faith, but in this instance operating 
through a living individual. 

The Cure d'Ars, who died only a half century ago, 
1859, astounded all Europe for thirty years with the 
marvelous cures he performed in his parish of Ars, 
near Lyons. So many were attracted to this wonder- 
ful healer that a line of omnibuses was established 
between Lyons and the Cure's benefice. For a long 
time, the man who gave daily evidence that the power 
to heal had not been withdrawn by the Almighty 
was hotly opposed and maliciously calumniated; even 
by his fellow-clergymen. The miraculous events inces- 
santly occurring at d'Ars were represented as impu- 
dent impostures and the Cure was assailed as a cheat, 
a fraud, as a fanatic who had lost his reason; in 
short, he went through the usual ordeal accompanying 
such occasions. But after a time his bitterest enemies 
were compelled to confess themselves in the wrong. 
Unbiased personal investigation left no room for 
doubt. For thirty years an average of 20,000 persons 
from all ranks and every country in Europe came 
to d'Ars for help each year. The church was crowded 
day and night. It is stated that the good man allowed 
himself but four hours rest out of twenty- four, his en- 
durance being considered as one of the greatest of 
his miracles. 

Dorothea Trudel — An equally unimpeachably at- 
tested instance of the power of the spirit in the resto- 
ration of health, is that of Dorothea Trudel, a Swiss 

54 



peasant girl who, reared in the direst poverty and 
misery, became a healer of great renown and the 
founder of a widely celebrated refuge for invalids 
abandoned by science, located in the village of Man- 
nedorf on the beautiful Lake Zurich. Rev. A. J. Gor- 
don, a broad-minded minister of Boston, an investiga- 
tor who is no less honest than competent, says : "The 
faith which it is so difficult for us to recover, was 
her native inheritance." 

Dorothea Trudel effected many most marvelous 
cures. Her system was to lay hands on the sick with 
fervent prayer. She also anointed with oil in the 
name of the Lord. In all cases she insisted upon an 
absolute, surrendering faith. Her hospice, as had been 
her humble cottage, was open at all times to all who 
needed help, without price. 

Dorothea Trudel lived the life of a saint whose sole 
thought was to help suffering mankind, but she had 
to endure persecution like all the rest whose works 
menace organized selfishness. 

Quoting her biographer, we have the following im- 
pressive story: 

"Medical men and others (the clerisy?) conceived 
great hostility to her; they sought to convict her of 
malpractice in the courts, though it was shown in pro- 
fuse testimony that most of her patients were such as 
had spent all their living upon physicians only to be 
made worse." 

In 1856, when her second building was completed, 
and already crowded with invalids, she was mulct in 
a money-fine and summarily ordered to clear the 
premises of all patients! But as fast as the houses 
were emptied they were again filled. In 1861, at the 
instigation of some other doctors, another persecution 
commenced. A heavy fine was imposed and she was 

55 



given a peremptory order to send every patient away. 
But then arose a champion, Herr Spondlin, an eminent 
advocate, who took charge of the case and defeated the 
machinations of her contemptible enemies. After that 
signal defeat no one again molested her. Samuel Zel- 
ler, who had been her devoted and able co-laborer for 
some years, continued the good work after the demise 
of the famous founder of the noble institution. 

Pastor Blumhardt — Every student who has 
sought confirmation as to the healing power knows 
of Pastor Blumhardt, who officiated many years in 
the little village, Mottlingen, in the Black Forest, in 
Germany. 

On first taking over that pastorate Pastor Blum- 
hardt had to do with about as godless an element as 
could be found in any country claiming to be civilized. 
Many claim to see the "Hand of God" in the pastor's 
first experience with his flock. Being asked, one day, 
to see what he could do for a woman whom no phy- 
sician could relieve of a great agony that she had 
endured for many years, and who was said to be 
"possessed," the pastor was urged to make a test of 
his ability to do the work the Master said is possible 
for all to do who have the faith. He undertook the 
task with great reluctance, fully realizing what fail- 
ure would mean. To his own very great surprise he 
succeeded in effecting an instantaneous cure. The im- 
pression made on his skeptical, rebellious flock was, 
if anything, a yet greater surprise. The most vil- 
lainous among the men, one known to be guilty of 
about every crime in the calendar, came to ask if it 
were possible that he could be made a better man. 
Again an unlooked for triumph rewarded the pastor's 
effort, and that encouragement marked the beginning of 
the career of a healer whose fame, within two years, 
spread to all parts of Europe, and even further. 

56 



The man in whom the pastor had wrought a quick 
and radical change of heart, in his ecstasy ran from 
house to house proclaiming his miraculous transfor- 
mation. Within two weeks all the rest of the terrible 
community were at the feet of the man who could 
work such physical and mental wonders. Within a 
month patients and penitents came by hundreds from 
other villages, and later greater crowds from distant 
towns, and other countries. 

At one of the memorable Sunday assemblages, of 
which so much has been written, a count was made 
that showed that groups of from ten to over fifty per- 
sons were present from over a hundred towns on that 
one day. 

Again, of course, skeptical science heaped its 
vituperations on one who could do, in minutes, and 
did do without material recompense, what its most 
reputed representatives could not do at all ; that, if 
they could do, they would exact a price that few could 
afford to pay. And the miserable drones who mum- 
bled their vain liturgies to listless ears; who were 
incapable of doing the Master's work, they, once more, 
of course, poured out all the venom with which they 
were filled by jealousy; by the mortification of seeing 
their own worthlessness so glaringly brought out by 
this contrast. 

But there came also men to Mottlingen who judged 
without prejudice; men broad of mind, willing to be 
convinced. Some remained for weeks, some staid for 
months to observe and study. Many left with a new 
understanding of things ; others deeply perplexed ; 
but all alike — wondering and unable to refute the evi- 
dence given to their own senses of perception. 

In the case of Pastor Blumhardt, better than in any 
other, an illustration is had of what is possible to do 
by any man who attains consciousness of the "power 

57 



of the spirit." All that was needed was to screw up 
his courage to make the first attempt. The but faintly 
hoped for success of his first endeavor entailed all the 
vast benefits he was able, afterwards, to confer on 
innumerable thousands. 

Is that a lesson? It should be. Many ministers 
possess the faith and realize that they should do such 
work, but are too cowardly to make a serious test of 
their ability to do the work of the Master whom they 
profess to serve. 

Is it more to ask God's help to free a man of physi- 
cal ailment than to implore His aid in freeing him of 
sin; to save his soul? 



"Effect is nature, and nature is enchanting; it be- 
longs to man, to the poet, the painter, the lover. But 
Cause, to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty 
thinkers, is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the 
sphere of Causes live the Newtons and all such thinkers 
as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, 
Buffon ; also the true poets and solitarys of the second 
Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and 
such sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear 
analogy to these conditions whenever the mind 
abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus had reached 
this height, at which all things change their relative 
aspect/' 

Balzac. 



58 



HEALERS IN HISTORY— PART II. 

AMERICA. 

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby is a notability among 
the healers of the past century. He was a "New 
Englander," born in New Lebanon, New Hampshire, 
February 16, 1802. His parents being poor and the 
family large, Phineas Quimby obtained but a meager 
primary education, and early in his 'teens entered the 
service of a clockmaker under the old conditions of 
apprenticeship, which included whatever "chores" 
might be to do. He became a good workman and 
followed that trade with success in Belfast, Maine, 
and vicinity, until he was some thirty odd years old. 
His leisure time was devoted to the improvement of 
his scant education and to satisfy the craving of a 
thinker for knowledge of things out of the common. 
Unfettered by narrow, conventional precepts, his mind 
was free to soar at will, and like many other men 
who accomplished unusual things that have benefited 
the world, he had reason to thank his poverty for 
keeping his mind clear of bias and preserving the in- 
dependence of his thought. Even when yet quite young, 
Quimby came to be looked upon as an odd and in- 
teresting "character. ,, When he talked seriously he 
made the average commoner think far beyond his 
usual wont. 

The higher powers of man were being, anew, de- 
bated in England, France, and Germany, and reports 
of these discussions were wafted across the ocean in 
increasing volume. New England needed no more 

59 



than the first spark to rekindle a strong belief in mys- 
tical things that had been almost totally extinguished 
by the murderous fanatical puritans. Quimby soon 
familiarized himself with these fascinating subjects, 
studied, pondered, and experimented. 

A number of mesmerists, seeking new fields for 
profit, came to America about that time, giving exhibi- 
tions of mesmeric power, lecturing, teaching, and some 
healing. A Frenchman named Poyen, who was well 
up in the work, drifted to Belfast while on a tour 
through the New England states, and very naturally 
Quimby sought his acquaintance and became his pupil. 
It was found that Quimby possessed remarkable mag- 
netic power and he soon equalled his teacher in the 
use thereof. He had the good fortune to discover a 
very good "sensitive" in a youth named Burkmar. 
After practicing with the latter for a time Quimby, 
accompanied by Burkmar, started out as a profes- 
sional mesmerist, giving exhibitions and delivering 
discourses on the possibilities contained in the newly 
recognized powers of man. Burkmar became clair- 
voyant and was able to describe the ailments of pa- 
tients and direct cures. They continued in this work for 
several years with considerable success, then they 
parted, Quimby having evolved a theory that, he felt, 
would enable him to cure people without any one's 
help. He established himself as a "healer" at Portland, 
Maine, in 1859, and soon became widely known as 
"Doctor Quimby." Performing some extraordinary 
cures that were discussed abroad, patients came to him 
in steadily increasing numbers. 

Among those attracted by Dr. Quimby's spreading 
fame was Mrs. Eddy, then, 1862, Mrs. Patterson. 
From a patient she became a pupil and volunteer sec- 
retary, and, according to accounts that can not be 

60 



refuted, the foundation for what came to be known 
as Christian Science was laid in that environment. 

Rev. Warren F. Evans, a Swedenborgian minister, 
also a healer of some note, and the author of a number 
of instructive works on healing, is said to have been 
converted to the Quimby doctrine after a number of 
professional visits, and about then the more or less 
experimental processes took concrete form under the 
now so widely recognized term "Mental Healing." 

Phineas Quimby was a good, true man in every 
respect. He made no distinction between the poor and 
the rich; they were welcome alike, to the best he had 
to give. He was loved by all who knew him and went 
to the great beyond sincerely mourned at the age of 
sixty-four, on January 16, 1866. 

Dr. James Roger Newton was an American 
healer who is yet well remembered. He was born 
at Newport, R. I., September 8, 1810. Dr. Newton 
operated professionally from 1858 until near his de- 
mise some twenty years after. By invitation of a 
number of distinguished men he visited England about 
1870 and there, as he had in his own country, demon- 
strated the fact that healing without medication is by 
no means a lost gift. 

R. Linton, a writer well known to students and 
earnest investigators, published a commentary on Dr. 
Newton's advent in London that for several reasons 
is well worth repeating at this time, and it includes 
all that need be said of the man in question. The ar- 
ticle was published in London, July 16, 1875. Mr. 
Linton says: 

"Five years have passed since Dr. Newton was in 
London. He came as an apostle to revive an old 
faith and to give the true meaning of the words of 
Jesus, who knew the possibilities of men, and through- 

61 



out life exemplified them. Not the least of his com- 
mands was : 4 Heal the Sick.' For ages the profound 
meaning of those words seems to have died out, for 
they have come to be interpreted 'Physic the Sick/ 
thus reducing the question to one of pills, mixtures, 
lotions, salves, depletions, and the other resources of 
modern medicine. Without wishing to depreciate the 
results achieved by medical science, it may be fairly 
questioned, whether these were the means prospectively 
presented to that grand constitutional mind. Most 
certainly, the absence of medical paraphernalia is con- 
spicuous in the life of Him who went about doing 
good. The only thing in His pharmacopoeia that we 
remember is that of moistened clay, which singularly 
enough, has quite recently been found to be a most 
effective remedy in certain affections. The words 
'Heal the Sick' ring with a spiritual sound, indicating 
a spiritual power, which, rightly exercised, would be 
omnipotent to allay the ills of life. Faith in such 
power, however, seems to have died out as civilization 
has advanced. The onslaught of modern materialism 
has quenched it. There is far less of this faith now 
than even in the middle ages in their so-called dark- 
ness. It is curious to observe the greater importance 
attached to mental and moral conditions in the pre- 
scriptions of olden times. Laughed to scorn as these 
are by the materialistic physicians of to-day, there 
is, nevertheless, a great truth underlying those old 
formulas. Truth can never wholly depart. It may 
for a time, a generation, nay, an age, be overlaid by 
error, but it must and will reassert itself. Therefore, 
down along the centuries the truth that lies concealed 
in the words we have quoted has been preserved. What 
is it? Simply that, associated with the spiritual organi- 
zation of man, there is a supermundane power to 

6:? 



curb, to check, to rectify those physical evils that ever 
and anon, in a world like this, befall us. In short, 
it may be said that as most, if not all, the ills of life 
have a spiritual origin, there is provided the spiritual 
cure. In sickness the auras of existence are deranged, 
and these auras must be set aright, not by poisonous 
drugs, but pre-eminently by bringing into equilibriated 
action the vital currents that flow within and around 
us. We take it this was the kind of healing proposed 
and commanded by the Great Teacher. 

"But the power to do it? It went, says the Church, 
like everything that was good and useful for human- 
ity, with the closing of the apostolic age. A poor 
compliment to pay the Almighty Father of the then 
unborn hundreds of millions of the human race ! Say 
we. The power, like the command, is eternal in the 
nature of things. And there has never been a gen- 
eration of men pass away since those words were ut- 
tered that has not borne evidence of it in some form 
or other." 

Closing his comments on Dr. Newton's visit, Mr. 
Linton says: "Many have been the pangs assuaged, 
many the comforts brought to the sick-bed, many the 
diseases that have taken to themselves wings, and 
many have been the calm hours brought to the dying, 
by the simple laying on of hands, which has found no 
boastful record in the pages of medical journals, but 
has been a quiet work in the houses of the people." 

Franz Schlader — Among the notable healers 
of most recent times Franz Schlader, whose meteoric 
career began in New Mexico in the summer of 1895, 
must be given first place. Early in July of that year 
extended telegraphic reports were printed by the larger 
daily newspapers commanding that service, of a healer 
performing astounding cures. 

63 



The first of those reports commenced thus : "Won- 
derfully like the story of the Scriptures as rehearsed in 
the New Testament, is the tale on every lip in the 
central part of New Mexico to-day. Wonderfully 
like the scenes of the Bible, in setting and in some of 
the characteristics, have been the scenes enacted here," 
etc. Soon reports came daily, and longer and longer, 
of excitement steadily increasing; of persons relieved 
of all manner of afflictions. From columns these re- 
ports expanded into pages; the news spread over the 
country like wild-fire and then abroad. Nothing in- 
terested the public more ; for the time Schlader became 
the dominant topic, discussed by everybody, every- 
where. 

The gist of Schlader's record as a healer follows : 

One day a man arrived, on foot, at Casa Vieja, a 
little hamlet near Las Lunas in New Mexico. Re- 
questing an old woman to give him a few matches, 
he noticed that one of her arms hung useless. Ask- 
ing the cause, he was informed that she had been 
partially paralyzed some years and was very unhappy 
in consequence. He took hold of the powerless mem- 
ber and stroked it a few times, then left to set up a 
little shelter-tent, not far from the woman's humble 
cabin. Suddenly the latter discovered that she had 
recovered the use of her arm^ and started out to spread 
the news. What followed immediately after this 
demonstration of the power to heal need not be de- 
scribed. Treating all who came with apparently un- 
varying success, it was not long before invalids came, 
and were brought, from every direction. 

Then came the reports alluded to, from which a few 
excerpts are made: "Suddenly there burst upon the 
view of these people, whence no one seems to know, a 
man whose touch brings sight to the blind, hearing 

64 



to the deaf, motion to the halt, peace unto the suffer- 
ing. Like the Christ, he was first doubted. Like the 
Christ, he was persecuted by the higher classes, who 
denounced and threatened him as an impostor, a 
schemer, a lunatic; but gradually he transforms his 
persecutors into friends/' 

"For more than two weeks Schlader, the wonderful 
healer, has been followed by hundreds wherever he 
has gone. Constant streams of people pass before him 
begging that he touch their hands/' * * * 

"Great lines of carriages, wagons, and saddle-horses 
stand before every house he enters/' * * * 

"Stories of his cures are beyond belief. Many of 
them have been investigated and now the most in- 
credulous are willing to admit that the man is doing 
good to a great number and harm to no one ; that he 
is honest in his endeavor to aid suffering humanity, 
and consistent in his action." * * * 

Then came many detailed accounts of most aston- 
ishing cures and interviews with many who had been 
relieved of serious,, disabling afflictions of long stand- 
ing, leaving no room for doubt as to the genuine- 
ness of the "power of the spirit" once more granted 
in large volume. When Schlader reached Denver, 
where his fame had preceded him,, he was recognized 
as a cobbler who had worked in a little shop on Wel- 
ton Street, from which he had disappeared some 
months before. The first report of his healing in 
Denver starts thus: "Before a modest little house 
stands Schlader, the healer; a long line of people 
reaches to the far corner of the next street, where it 
turns, extending indefinitely towards the more popu- 
lous part of the city." 

Day after day Schlader stood at that post, week 
after week, curing the sick, and convincing even those 

65 



who came to be amused and to scoff, that, if healing 
be a miracle, there was proof galore that the power 
to work miracles was yet as free a gift as in the days 
it was first offered ! 

What disgruntled his opponents most was the fact 
that he asked no recompense for his incomparable 
service; that he would not even accept money when 
it was offered! 

Obviously, Schlader had but one aim; to please 
God and to demonstrate to the world that Christ might 
be taken at his word — that whoever has real faith can 
do the works that He did. 

Medics whose victims went to Schlader as a last 
hope and were cured, denounced him as a fraud and 
sought to have him suppressed, and the clergy, with 
few exceptions, were no less energetic in their calum- 
niations of the man who, without title, pretending 
nothing, stood day after day doing the work of the 
Lord they are supposed to represent, but whose works 
they are incompetent to do. 

Though unvoiced, the works of that poor, unedu- 
cated shoemaker were the most crucial arraignment to 
which the two presumed to be loftiest professions, 
had ever been subjected; at least in America. 

From Denver Schlader went to Omaha, where, for 
a short time, the same scenes were enacted. 

Suddenly, he disappeared once more, and for a 
time no trace of him could be discovered. A few who 
had heard him declare his intention to "go into a wil- 
derness and fast forty days" to still further increase 
his spiritual power, surmised that he had departed 
with that intention, but as to a direction taken, no 
one had the least idea. 

One day the post brought me a letter from a friend 
who then lived in an isolated spot some miles from 

66 



Espanola, New Mexico, who informed me that he 
had met Schlader riding in a southwesterly direction, 
on an old gray horse, without arms or provisions. 

The next news received came in the latter part of 
May, 1896, from two American prospectors, who dis- 
covered Schlader's emaciated body in the foothills of 
the Sierra Madre range, about thirty miles southwest 
of Casa Grande in the state of Chihuahua, in Old Mex- 
ico. The remains were identified beyond questioning. 
His treasured Bible was found by his side; his name 
inscribed therein. Schlader was about forty years old 
at the time of his demise. 

By ignoring, when not opposing, that man Schlader, 
the doctors of the soul, as well as the doctors of the 
body, missed an unparalleled opportunity to discover 
the key to a problem of paramount interest. All right- 
minded people agree to that. Instead of making any 
such effort, the major part of those who should have 
seized that chance with greatest eagerness vied with 
each other in vilifying and condemning the man with- 
out examination ; a man who was as ready to sacrifice 
himself as was the Master whom he had elected to 
serve. 

Many "interviews" on Schlader and his work were 
published during the excitement he caused. Among 
the opinions expressed by medics there was none with 
scintillating sense enough to be worth quoting, even 
to the extent of a line. The quintessence of their 
judgment was that Schlader should be put in jail. 
That was perfectly natural and in accordance with all 
precedents. 

The reverends were, probably without meaning to 
be, more instructive than the doctors ; in one way at 
least, in that most of their utterances exposed the 
mockery of the Christian spirit professed. 

67 



There was one notable exception, Rev. Myron Reed, 
who availed himself, con amove, of the opportunity to 
witness the work all true followers of Christ should 
be able to do. His frank declaration should be printed 
in golden letters. 

Following are examples of the opinions of "em- 
inent" clergymen : 

Monsignor Thomas Ducey, St. Leo's Roman Cath- 
olic Church, New York : 

"I have not paid very much attention to Schlader 
because I have no confidence in him. It is a waste of 
time, it seems to me, to read about a man who claims 
a power scarcely second to that of our divine Lord. 
The ages have been full of such impostors, and I can 
see no reason why this particular little spot in the 
ocean of time should be exempt from them. There 
are always silly people enough to give any fad a fol- 
lowing, even if it be an impious one like 
this man's, which mocks the very sacredness 
of our Lord's healings. In the end the sober 
common sense of the public triumphs and the im- 
postors are relegated to oblivion, from which they 
should never have emerged. The strides which the 
science of medicine has been making show the neces- 
sity of broadening our minds in that direction, instead 
of shutting them up by such superstitions as this one 
and the healing of the Christian Scientists, which has 
so often been condemned by the courts. This Schlader 
affair will go on until some day a death will be shown 
to have happened by neglect of medical attendance 
for this power, and then the man's fabric of preten- 
sions will crumble and the people will see him as he 
is." 

Read after the foregoing, the next opinion is highly 
entertaining. 

68 



Rev. Madison C. Peters, Bloomingdale Reformed 
Church, New York: 

"I believe that the cures of which Schlader makes 
so much are merely the results of imagination. Not 
objective, but subjective imagination. The people 
who go to him fancy they are ill when they are not. 
Once I visited a sacred shrine about eighteen miles 
out of Quebec. Many cures had taken place there. 
Scores of patients were there that day. It was a large 
church. One part of it was piled high with discarded 
crutches and supports of all sorts. The pile reached, 
it seemed, to the roof. I wondered how it could all 
be. I studied the affair for several days. Then I 
made inquiries. I learned that Quebec is full of beg- 
gars. Scores of them had begged until playing cured, 
they thought, would pay better, and then dropped 
their crutches. It was a spectacular and dramatic 
way to give up begging, and mankind loves the spec- 
tacular. Was it not only the other day that one of the 
most celebrated cures at Lourdes turned out to be the 
work of a notorious fraud, sufficiently clever to de- 
ceive the best detectives of Paris ?" 

The next is of the common pattern; without any 
spice of originality. 

Rev. Ferd. C. Iglehardt, Park Avenue Methodist 
Church, New York: 

"I believe that most of this business is largely imag- 
inary. I think that such people as this alleged healer 
of Denver are either cranks or base impostors, with 
sinister or mercenary motives. I think that prayer 
sometimes cures the sick. It did so in the time of 
Christ and has done so since. " Being asked to ex- 
plain why he denied to Schlader the divine power in 
healing that has been credited to certain religious 
leaders in the different centuries, he replied: "I can 



not speak for those who in their time honestly ac- 
corded to certain persons the divine power of healing. 
All I say applies only to those of to-day ; of those do- 
ings and claims I can secure knowledge. Speaking 
generally, I do not believe that since Christ we have 
seen the divine power of healing upon the earth." 

The next opinion would be all right in its way if it 
were not for the rather amusing reservation at the 
end. 

Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, Madison Square Presby- 
terian Church, New York: 

"I have been very much interested in Schlader. I 
feel more and more from year to year that we know 
very little of the great world of influence which has 
so great a variety of expression. We speak of personal 
magnetism, of the magical influence of mind upon mind 
without being perfectly clear in our meaning of the 
terms. I am inclined to admit there is much truth in 
a large percentage of such cases as those of Schlader. 
I have heard so much that is worthy of the man that 
I am awaiting the result of his work with interest. 
* * This wide range of phenomena that we call 
the power of mind over mind is utterly inexplicable 
to us by all the ordinary means of procedure. 
Whether Schlader is working through divine power, 
or is working in a new era of thought which is human, 
is a question. My own belief is that his work has a 
mixture of the human and divine. I am prepared to 
believe a good many things of this kind. When 
Schlader begins to charge I shall begin to distrust 
him." 

Why distrust him on that account? Do the present 
day ministers of the gospel serve the Lord without 
recompense ? 

Next comes the "exception" mentioned, prefaced by 

70 



an "editorial" that I would be only too much pleased 
to credit to its source, but cannot, because it came 
as a clipping among a mass of others sent me by 
unsigned friends in various parts of the country : 

"Rev. Myron Reed has been talking about Francis 
Schlader, the poor cobbler, who is doing such great 
things in healing the afflicted. It is exceedingly re- 
freshing to read the utterances of Mr. Reed. He is 
a messenger. He delivers his message. Like all other 
souls who feel the thrill of a new life, a new hope for 
humanity ; he speaks nothing new, for there is nothing 
new; but he garbs the shreds of thought with a live 
personality. A man like Reed is bound to be heard 
sooner or later, and, having truth on his side, he can 
afford to wait. Mr. Reed characterizes Schlader a 
good deal after the fashion that the 'almost per- 
suaded' regarded the Nazarene. He freely admits that 
the humble healer has made him ashamed of his easy 
work ; he says he has been helped morally and has been 
cured ^>f a native dislike for the disagreeable. Mr. 
Reed says : 'There is no doubt that Francis Schlader 
is a most remarkable man. He performs great cures, 
takes no pay, teaches a divine lesson, and from all ac- 
counts is the most literal manifestation of the Christ 
spirit that has appeared since the Galilean played his 
part on the stage of life. The modern Scribes and 
Pharisees are also repeating history. The jibes of 
the vulgar, the ostracism, and the ingratitude of a 
flippant, degenerate age haunt his footsteps and 
harass his life. But he is calm and unruffled, .the em- 
bodiment of simplicity, emphatically the under dog 
in the struggle for supremacy. He is in the maw of 
the Gorgons/ " 

"Mr. Reed sums up his estimate of the man in the 
following words: 

" 'I believe that he has observed the conditions of 

71 



power. He has taken no care of himself. He has 
gone where he believes he was sent. He has done 
what he believes he was told to do. He is the only 
man of the kind and degree that I ever saw. If peo- 
ple can not get good from God through him I do not 
know why. He has conformed. It is the most literal 
following of Jesus Christ that I have ever known. It 
was to be expected that he would be treated harshly. 
Some people have fully met the expectation. A dis- 
tinguished clergyman of this city (Denver) who is 
apt to say bright things, is reported to have said that 
the reason that the clergy did not indorse the man zvas 
because if they did the people woidd expect them to do 
what he is doing, and they don't know hozv!' 

"It is a glowing tribute. How many of the per- 
fumed lackadaisical contingency of Christian apostasy 
are brave enough to echo this strong man's testimonial 
to a poor Christ? Schlader is a pathetic figure. Think 
of a man in this age of rush and sop and grind who 
does not care for himself! Such is Schlader/' 

A woman's opinion will close the collection. Eliza- 
beth Cady Stanton is her good name. She said : "We 
are entering upon an entirely new field of psychologi- 
cal knowledge, of thought, of feeling. He is a rash 
person who says this or that is a fraud because one 
has or seems to have some power in that field that 
others do not possess. The 'black art' suspicion which 
years ago attached to the practice of mesmerism in the 
minds of the ignorant has rapidly disappeared with 
the fading away of the personal devil. In the last 
ten years, under the influence of the positive proof 
which the scientists have brought forward for our 
study, the power of mind over mind has long ceased 
to be a question among intelligent persons. The ques- 
tion now is how far that power extends." 

72 



Question asked of Mrs. Stanton: "Are Schlader's 
cures as well proved as those of Christ ?" The an- 
swer: "Certainly, and more so, for the reason that 
these reports of his cures can be verified, a thing 
which was not possible in the time of Christ, owing 
to the absence of records and newspapers. ,, 

Teresa Urrea, "Santa Teresa/' as she was called 
by the Indios and Mexicans, was born in the Batuco 
mountain fastness of Sinaloa in Mexico, about 1870. 
She developed into a strong, vivacious, and handsome 
girl, having a profusion of long, silky, intensely black 
hair, a fine olive complexion and beautiful dark brown 
eyes that, later, exercised a subtile power and ex- 
pressed so deep a sympathy that no one upon whom 
their gaze had once been fixed failed to speak of it as 
a remarkable experience. When about eighteen years 
of age Teresa went to sleep one day and did not 
awaken for four full months. It was a deep trance 
state. During that long apparent suspension of con- 
sciousness the girl underwent a radical transformation. 
She awakened full of exaltation, proclaiming that she 
had been granted the gift of healing, and that asser- 
tion was soon proved to be true. The poorer class of 
natives, learning of her power, swarmed to her father's 
rancho from all points in northern Mexico, and after 
a time many of the richer people also came to seek 
her aid. 

The fierce, indomitable Yaquis declared her to be 
their own particular saint sent by God to ameliorate 
their ills and protected her with jealous care. During 
one of the revolts of that invincible tribe reports came 
to the government that this young woman had caused 
the outbreak. That charge was a malicious falsehood, 
but after another insurrection attributed to the same 
source, the government ordered her to leave the coun- 

73 



try, and had her escorted to the boundary line of the 
United States, where a protocol was read to her to the 
effect that if she returned to Mexico she would be 
arrested and treated as a leader of insurgents. 

Omitting many highly interesting accounts of won- 
derful cures she wrought and of extraordinary inter- 
ventions on her and her father's behalf, we come to re- 
ports of her work as a healer that are incontestable. 
Teresa Urrea came to Los Angeles, California, in the 
latter part of 1902. Her coming was unheralded, but 
her advent soon became known. She was domiciled 
with one of her people in the Mexican quarter of the 
city and but few days had elapsed after her arrival 
when the humble cottage that gave her shelter was 
besieged by crowds of her own race and also Amer- 
icans who had heard of her power to heal the sick. 
Surrounding grounds and contingent streets presented 
the scenes usual on such occasions. From early morn- 
ing until late in the evening the lame, blind, and sick 
awaited their turn patiently. Her friends were almost 
compelled to use force to make her take sufficient 
nourishment and rest, and it was with deep sorrow 
that sympathetic observers noted her increasing ex- 
haustion under the constant strain. She asked no 
payment for what she did and gave preference to the 
poorest when choice had to be made. 

Teresa Urrea died young. At the time of her 
demise she was only thirty-five years old. Those who 
knew her most intimately say that perpetual grieving 
over the pain and sorrows she could not assuage, and 
the constant overtaxing of her strength, were the 
cause of her early death. 



74 



HEALERS IN HISTORY— PART III. 

John Alexander Dowie is a decidedly prominent 
figure among the "healers" of most recent time, but of 
a class apart from that previously mentioned. One 
striking difference is, that, whereas the healers in the 
preceding class gave no thought whatever to mundane 
advantages, John Alexander Dowie never lost sight 
of them for a single moment. In that regard he was 
the extreme antithesis of Franz Schlader. Schlader 
refused money, even when it was pressed upon him; 
Dowie demanded money, howled for it continually. 
He not only asked for some, but for all one had who 
was willing to give any. 

That Dowie was a wonder-worker cannot be denied. 
He wrought two kinds of miracles. He cured the 
sick, and he compelled people to give him all their 
worldly possessions. 

Arriving in Chicago with less than one hundred dol- 
lars, so it is said, within three years Dowie was "roll- 
ing in wealth." 

As one decade only has passed since the press of 
the country described Dowie's works daily and at 
length, there is no need to enter into particulars 
thereof here. His place in this review is as the best 
example of a distinct type of healer. 

There was nothing of the meek, self-denying Chris- 
tion about Dowie. He was certainly not of the kind that, 
if smitten on one cheek, would offer the other for the 
further enjoyment of the smiter. Not he! Dowie 
was not only aggressive; he was senselessly abusive. 

75 



If he was "persecuted" he was mostly, himself, respon- 
sible for the enmity evinced toward him. 

What possession of a (any?) power to heal the sick 
will enable one to accomplish in a material way, had 
its best exemplification in Chicago. As a preacher 
Dowie was a vulgar ranter, but an enormous propor- 
tion of the public willingly closed their eyes and ears 
to all his demerits in view of the works he did as a 
healer. 

That a man like Dowie, so totally unlike any con- 
ception of one "working by the power of the spirit," 
should be a divine instrument, was a puzzle that made 
many old students sit up and do some hard thinking. 
So strong was the position that Dowie gained by 
means of his healing, that the united efforts of the 
clergy and medics were of no avail against him. He 
defied not only these, his chief assailants, but the 
municipal and state authorities as well. 

As a champion of healing, Dowie was a veritable 
Napoleon. Nothing daunted either of these two con- 
querors until the one went to Waterloo; the other to 
New York. 

What all was possible for Dowie to achieve, if he 
had curbed his unparalleled egotism and compelled 
respect for his work by a consistent, dignified deport- 
ment, the most prolific imagination could not estimate. 

Dowie's followers were by no means ignorant, cred- 
ulous dupes, as has been so often asserted; far from 
it; he attracted many thoroughly sane, strong, brainy 
men and able workers; no drones. His tremendous 
influence grew steadily until his vanity and lust for 
power and wealth clouded his reason. Yet, even then 
the waning of his wonderful dominance was slow. 
Only when he made himself ridiculous, as by declaring 
himself to be the reincarnation of Elijah, the prophet, 

76 



then some of his stanchest adherents began to falter. 
When he made his memorable descent on New York 
— an invasion from which he assured his people he 
would return with fifty million dollars — and failed so 
abjectly, so utterly, to accomplish anything whatever, 
that was the beginning of the end. 

If Dowie had been able to open his campaign in 
New York with anything like as good a demonstration 
of healing power as he often exhibited at the old 
Tabernacle on Stony Island Avenue in Chicago, he 
would have silenced the scoffers and scored a great 
triumph; but he did no work. His coarse harangue, 
undiscriminatmg, unjustifiable attacks, disgusted the 
intelligent men and women who came to judge him 
without bias; who came to give him support, willing 
to overlook all faults if he only repeat the good work 
he had done ; but there was no such work. 

In view of the Zoilean ranting of the "prophet," and 
the total absence of any sign in testimony of "power," 
those who came to scoff and riot almost seemed jus- 
tified in creating the pandemonium that ensued; that 
required a large force of police to quell. That was the 
end. 

When Dowie's project to found Zion City was 
matured people in all parts of the world were making 
preparation to come and lay their all at his feet. The 
unmitigable fiasco in New York disillusioned thou- 
sands, just in time to save them from the disappoint- 
ment and privations endured by those now composing 
the community of Zion. 

Zion City stands as a dual memorial. Of one man's 
power of achievement ; of the same man's self-destroy- 
ing egotism, vanity, and folly. 

"What was that man's marvelous power?" That is 
a question that has been asked by countless thousands. 

77 



From the beginning of his healing work in Chicago, 
many writers dwelled at more or less length on 
Dowie's strong magnetic influence. They were right. 
That was his power. He was so full of it that it 
fairly streamed from him under the slightest stimu- 
lation. He could heal therewith, and he could dom- 
inate therewith. The same work that Dowie did has 
been done by many other men in a minor way; less 
ostentatiously, in a less spectacular manner. There 
are innumerable old books in France, Germany, and 
England, that prove beyond questioning, that mag- 
netism is a curative agent of undefinable scope and 
a subjugating force that, on occasion, is irresistible. 
Extraordinary cures, as well attested as anything else 
we are expected to believe, are recorded in those 

books. 

* * * 

Mesmer and his followers performed wonderful 
cures by purely magnetic effect, without any pretense 
of spiritual or divine aid. The excitement created by 
Mesmer over magnetic healing during his sojourn in 
Paris, 1778-9, according to all accounts, was very 
great and spread rapidly throughout France and to 
other countries also. Associations called "Cercle 
d'Harmonie," formed by large groups of highly in- 
telligent and distinguished men and women, sprang 
up in every direction, the spur being to exploit a 
media promising to bring the vexing mysteries of the 
self nearer solution. 

The outbreak of the French revolution, centering 
public attention on the all-excluding exigencies of war, 
the pursuit of this study, like everything else unrelated 
to immediate cares and safety, was brought to an 
abrupt halt. When peace was restored and minds re- 
gained their normal balance, mesmerism again was 

78 



given serious attention, but without the previous gen- 
eral excitement 

When one becomes at all familiar with the phenom- 
ena of magnetism and discovers the many proofs 
adduced of important uses to which this imponderable 
force may be applied, it confounds reason to find any 
other than mercilessly selfish motives for opposing the 
advancement of a knowledge from which, on the very 
best of grounds, so much good may be confidently 
looked for. 

Swedenborg's biographer made a most apt remark 
when he said: "Nothing is more evident to-day than 
that men of facts are afraid of a large number of 
important facts." That observation is as true to-day as 
it was over two centuries ago, and applies no less to 
the phenomena of magnetism than to spiritual things. 

That "religious feeling/' of which, by the way, the 
a priori is no more established than of any of the other 
things best worth knowing, enhances every power that 
is not solely physical, is incontestible. 

A very interesting question, in order here, is : "Is 
there a logical reason to say that the 'power of the 
spirit' and a similar power, at least similar in effect, 
only more obviously human, natural, are not con- 
fluent?" 

Let us see if there is not a way to come to a better 
understanding of these immensely important premises. 
A healer who cures by the "power of the spirit," alone, 
banishes sickness with a mere touch, may stand to his 
work, days long, year in and out, without apparent 
fatigue, relieving sufferers of their ailments, by hun- 
dreds in a day. The effect, if one is produced, is in- 
stantaneous and permanent. The healer who relies 
solely upon the power contained within himself ex- 
pends more or less physical force; in many cases he 

79 



works hard enough to cause profuse perspiration, and 
he may have to labor thus on a number of days to 
produce the desired result. If he treats twenty to 
thirty patients in a day he is more or less exhausted, 
and if unacquainted with the means to renew his 
spent force, and he continues his practice long, he 
will surely come to need treatment himself. 

If that assertion were purely theoretical it would 
be worthless. It is not. I have had enough experi- 
ence in the work under both conditions to warrant my 
assuming all this to be absolutely true. I will add to 
that, without any reason to hesitate, that in the de- 
gree that a healer who employs the "natural power" 
becomes more spiritualized, in that ratio will his heal- 
ing power increase and the exhaustion, consequent 
upon purely physical labor, diminish. Furthermore: 
If he becomes completely spiritualized, his work quick- 
ens to the mere momentary touch, and instead of de- 
pleting his own vitality he then gains from his labor. 

The more intrinsic the religious attribute of the 
healer the greater, also, is his ability to inspire the 
ever requisite faith; hence the quicker and more per- 
fect the cures wrought. 

The higher phenomena occurring in magnetic coma 
opened a broad way to the solution of all these prob- 
lems of most vital interest. I expect that statement 
to be refuted and laughed at, but it is true, neverthe- 
less. Its verity could have been established two 
hundred or more years ago and mankind would have 
been spared no end of suffering if it had ; but the two 
ever vigilant enemies, the church and the obstruction- 
ists in science, have always been ready with most dras- 
tic measures to prevent the serious consideration of 
any measure menacing their power and yield of pecu- 
niary benefits. 

80 



The experience of Galileo indicates the attitude of 
the church; the treatment accorded to Harvey and 
Hahnemann shows the spirit of the other junto. The 
ignorant are easily led to accept whatever it is desired 
to make them believe, once a hold on their credulity 
is secured. No more was necessary than to declare 
the practice of magnetism to be inimical to the inter- 
ests of the church — the work of the devil — to make 
the devout shudder at the mere mention of it. That 
part of the populace that was not under clerical 
dominance was taken care of by the doctors who lost 
no opportunity, in print or speech, to cast ridicule and 
obloquy on the alleged delusion — magnetism. 

"Eppure si muove" said Galileo when he rose from 
his knees after abjuring, under coercion by the In- 
quisitorial Tribunal, the established fact that the world 
does move. 

"But it does circulate/' persisted Harvey, when the 
medical faculty, almost in unison, called him a fraud, 
impostor, impudent charlatan, and endeavored to crush 
him for asserting that the blood has a circulatory sys- 
tem. 

In precisely the same manner the two celebrated 
practitioners, Drs. Elliotson and Esdaile, after proving 
conclusively that magnetic sleep is a far surer and 
safer means to make surgical operations painless than 
any narcotic, and as well — that it is a remedial agent 
surpassing all artificial expedients and material med- 
ical resources — were cried down, just as every other 
innovator has been, and must expect to be in the 
future, who engages to expose the fallacy of any sys- 
tem that is well entrenched, perfect in its organiza- 
tion to resist attacks. 

As every child in school now knows that the world 
moves, and most people, even those lacking education. 

81 



know that the blood circulates ; so, some years hence, 
and not many, all will know that magnetism is a 
blessing beyond comparison ; that it is the one and only 
true line of approach to the solution of the confound- 
ing problems of the self. 

Mary Baker G. Eddy is not a "healer" in the com- 
mon application of that designation, but as the founder 
of Christian Science — an institution that aims to teach 
how to avoid and dispel all evil, including the mala- 
dies cured by the so-called healers — Mrs. Eddy must 
be given a place in this review. 

Christian Science has given the world something to 
ponder over. In comparatively few years Christian 
Science has expanded into a movement of such mag- 
nitude that it is impossible to find an intelligent com- 
munity either in America, Europe, and colonies in 
other countries, where its propaganda is not in evi- 
dence. Within less than a quarter century a surpris- 
ingly large number of truly splendid Christian Science 
churches have been erected and no other Christian sect 
can boast of as uniformly faithful attendance at ser- 
vices. 

Despite scoffers and cavilers, Christian Science has 
gained a membership that vastly exceeds any enroll- 
ment ever achieved by a sectarian organization in as 
short a time; especially of men and women of equal 
intelligence. 

Easily obvious it is, that Christian Science has 
passed the stage where its beneficial progress can be 
retarded by antagonisms that spring from ignorance 
and unreasoning prejudice, or mercenary motives. 

I am not affiliated with any sect, hence am not a 
Christian Scientist. I know but little of the cult save 
what I have gleaned from observation of results 
achieved by its practitioners in treating the sick. My 

82 



opportunities to gather evidence having been numerous 
and what I witnessed meriting high praise, I willingly 
accept that testimony as proof that Christian Science 
is built on a sound foundation. 

Mental healing is the corner-stone of Christian 
Science, and mental healing is the synonym for one of 
the phases of right and forceful thinking. 

Most sensible practitioners, whatever their method 
— whether classed as "regulars" or "outlaws," from 
the viewpoint of medical ethics, and who do not seek 
personal advantages at the expense of truth — are now 
ready to concede that the mind plays the leading role 
in the performance of cures. 

A curious and significant paradox looms up here. 
It presents itself in the irrefutable fact that every 
method of curing disease — and there are many — is 
able to produce proof of cures effected; of the same 
diseases cured by widely different processes ; some 
very simple, and some very complex. That being an 
incontestable verity, the very natural conclusion 
reached by every diligent delver is that there must be 
a healing principle in nature that can be aroused and 
brought into action by a great variety of expedients ; 
by the individual himself if he has sufficient knowledge 
— and that is not very difficult to obtain when one has 
once commenced to think right. 

From whatever source Mrs. Eddy derived her first 
knowledge — whether, or not, it was obtained from 
Phineas P. Quimby, as is asserted — she it was who 
gave form to the doctrine that is giving comfort and 
relief to millions, unobstructed by circumstances of 
poverty, wealth, or the otherwise apparent necessity 
of seeking help afar. 

In that Mrs. Eddy has done more than any healer 
has ever accomplished who must come in personal 

83 



contact with those requiring help. Her pupils, quali- 
fied as teachers and practitioners, are scattering over 
the world by thousands and I venture to assert that the 
average of incompetents among graduates from the 
Christian Science institutions is far less than is found 
among the graduates of the "regular" medical col- 
leges, as is avowed, in lament, by those who certainly 
must know best, and who would be glad to deny that 
fact if they could. 

As a conclusion to this little history of the more 
prominent healers I wish to add an observation that 
students will appreciate. 

Realization of the force of thought is yet very lim- 
ited. That is to say: of the extent of that force; of 
the wonders that can be wrought by a mind conscious 
of that power, with ability to control and direct the 
same. All things done by men that astound and per- 
plex the multitude — such as the production of phe- 
nomena, especially psychological phenomena, of things 
called supernormal, magical — all these are merely 
demonstrations of ability to exercise the power of the 
mind, or to bring the mind into a state, condition, or 
relation, in which it opens to agencies designated as 
imponderable; in which a higher vision brings many 
things labelled "unknowable" within range of the 
knowable. 

Such knowledge and power are most easily ac- 
quired by a serious study of the self, followed by prop- 
erly directed investigations of magnetism, mesmer- 
ism ; both inexhaustible fields of incomparable interest. 

Phineas Quimby was a mesmerist. 

The Opinion of a Real Minister. Rev. Warren 
F. Evans says: "The cures wrought by Jesus were 
no miracles, or departures from the established order 
of nature, as he, himself, avers. They exhibit the ac- 

84 



tion of a higher law, the dominion of mind over mat- 
ter. Everything that is done is effected in harmony 
with some law of nature — some law of mind or matter 
— and has in it the relation of cause and effect. To 
understand the law by which it is done is to be able to 
do it. Hence Jesus declares respecting his wonderful 
works, which were mostly those of healing the bodies 
and minds of the people who flocked to him from 
every part of the land of the Jews — 'The works that I 
do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall 
ye do, because I go to my Father/ 

"This is as true as any promise that His lips ever ut- 
tered. He commissioned and instructed His apostles 
to cure all manner of disease and sickness among the 
people. 

"The same cause will produce the same effect to-day. 

"The cures effected by Gassner (see History of 
Healers) who created so widespread an excitement in 
the latter half of the 18th century, and those wrought 
by Madame St. Amour, a Swedenborgian lady of rank, 
in France, and those performed by Herr Richter in 
Silesia, exhibit as great therapeutic power as was 
manifested by Jesus nearly nineteen centuries ago in 
Jud£a. All forms of disease were, in many cases, in- 
stantly healed by an invinsible influence, and the 
wonders of the apostolic age were reproduced." 

Rev. Evans, again: "The power of curing disease 
was conferred by the Christ upon the Church, not as 
a transient circumstance attending the introduction of 
Christianity into the world, but as a perpetual inherit- 
ance. It was not so much a gift to individuals as an 
invariable attribute of the vital faith. " 

Rev. Evans, again: "The Protestant clergy, in or- 
der to excuse and to account for their spiritual im- 
potency, have strenously argued that the gift of heal- 

85 



ing was confined to the chosen twelve or to the seven- 
ty disciples, or at most to the first century of the 
Christian age. But without any limitation as to time 
or place, the risen Jesus affirms: — These signs shall 
follow them that believe. They shall lay hands on the 
sick, and they shall recover/ " 

"This wondrous power is here by a divine commis- 
sion conferred upon all men in every age and clime, 
who truly believe, who have a faith whose vital root 
is the life of God in the soul of men. 

"As William Howitt has well said : Tf these things 
are not true, Christianity is not true ; if it and they are 
true, the fault lies in ourselves if we lack the power; 
we have not the vital faith and are only half Chris- 
tians. ' " 

Rev. Evans, once more : "Nine-tenths of the public 
life of Christ was spent in curing diseases of the mind 
and body. To truly follow Christ is to do the same 
thing, moved to it by the same spirit of love and all- 
conquering faith. He who does this is in the genuine 
apostolic succession, although no lordly prelate has 
ever laid his impotent hands upon his head. He who 
cannot do it is only half a Christian minister, and that 
a small half, though he may have been ordained by 
the pope, or even by St. Peter himself." 



"There are times in the history of men and nations 
when they stand so near the vail that separates mor- 
tals and immortals, time from eternity and men from 
their God, that they can almost hear the beatings and 
feel the pulsations of the Infinite." 

James A. Garfield. 



FACTS THAT JUSTIFY THE SPREADING OF 
SO-CALLED FADS. 

Ever louder grows the clamor "Give the healers a 
chance." 

In law all who profess to minister to the sick, who 
are not graduates of certain specified schools, who are 
not registered as licensed physicians in the state in 
which they practice, are classed as charlatans, as 
frauds, as criminals. 

All such are subject to arrest, imprisonment and the 
imposition of heavy fines. The question is — is this 
fair — is it just — does such a law benefit the public, or 
the reverse? The contention that this law is neces- 
sary for the protection of the public is upheld mainly, 
and almost solely, by those who profit from that law 
in a monetary sense. On the other hand it is main- 
tained that this law is pernicious in the extreme ; that 
it operates to the detriment of the public weal in that 
it is a barrier to advances in furthering the well-being 
of the people; that it obstructs the open demonstra- 
tion of simple, curative methods that, if better known, 
would diminish the suffering of mankind in a large 
measure and lead to the solution of many problems of 
disease that the physicians who have secured the ex- 
clusive right to minister to the sick have failed, sig- 
nally, in solving, as is admitted by their own highest 
authorities. 

Protestants against the curtailing of the constitu- 
tional right of every man to do what he deems to be 
best for himself as long as he does not injure another, 

87 



starting with a few scattered hundreds are now massed 
in groups of many thousands, and these rebels are 
multiplying at a prodigious rate. 

Examining, without bias, facts that have led to this 
widespread revolt, it is found that many eminent 
"regular" physicians — leaders in the profession — 
frankly acknowledge that their so-called science has 
no right to make such pretentions as are put forth by 
the medics who incessantly hound complacent legisla- 
tors and other politicians to make laws more and 
more binding that give them the monopoly of the 
doctoring business. 

As an example of how men whose eminence is based 
on real merit regard the present status of the medical 
art, the following extracts from a contribution to the 
Independent is a good illustration. 

The article is entitled: "The World's Greatest 
Problem," and the author therof is Dr. A. E. Wright, 
a highly distinguished English physician, formerly a 
member of the Indian Plague Commission, a body of 
men representing the best achievements in the art of 
medicine. 

Dr. Wright says that the problem of disease — 
the problem of preventing disease and of curing it 
when it appears — still confronts man as it confronted 
him at the outset of the race. His own words are : — 
"Over the processes of disease we have, as yet, 
achieved almost no directive control." 

He tells of a "brainy" American physician who told 
him that it was the opinion of his profession in his 
country with respect to that Christian Science which 
is the negation of the medical art, that if only the 
Christian Scientists had a little science, or the physi- 
cians a litle Christianity, it would hardly matter in 
serious illness which of the two was called in, provid- 

88 



ing the patient had a good nurse. "Many a true word 
is spoken in jest" was Dr. Wright's comment on that 
observation. 

Regarding the "careless rich" who comfort them- 
selves with the belief th^t if they get sick the family 
physician or some famous expert will know just what 
to do to cure them — he says: — "the men who think 
wealth can drive away disease are victims of con- 
fidence sadly misplaced." 

Dr. Wright's reference to "experts" directs reflec- 
tion to the rapid growth of "expertism." It is a 
lucrative business. However the distinction of being 
an expert is gained, his fee is regulated by what he has 
the audacity to demand and the credulity of the patient 
and his ability to pay. There is no standard by 
which the opinion, itself, is estimated. 

In the trial of Harry K. Thaw for the murder of 
Stanford White a superabundance of evidence is had 
of the utter worthlessness of expert opinions. The 
first "eminent authority" examined, who asserted that 
he had been called upon to pass judgement on over 
eight hundred cases of alleged insanity, was proven 
to be, not only totally ignorant of all approved method- 
ical tests, but as well of about everything the most or- 
dinary physician is supposed to know. He was even 
unable to answer questions in anatomy that any lay- 
man who had ever studied physiology would have an- 
swered offhand. 

When both sides called in other experts, the prose- 
cution to prove the accused sane and responsible for 
his act, and the defense to prove his insanity and ir- 
responsibility, there followed an accumulation of 
divergent opinions that left the jury as completely 
dependent on its own conclusions as if no experts at 
all had been heard. If these men are experts, how 

89 



could they entertain totally opposite views ? If expert, 
and honest, should not the opinions expressed have 
been unanimous? Obviously, there is a serious men- 
ace in expertism. Experts can be "hired" in any 
number to prove, or disprove, whatever one with 
money enough may desire. 

The deeper one goes into facts bearing on arbitrary 
methods for preserving and restoring health, the more 
one inclines to shout with the rebels : "Give the heal- 
ers a chance." 

The more one comes to know of artificial expedi- 
ents to cure sickness, the more one inclines to trust in 
nature and to believe in metaphysical agencies ; mainly 
because of a mass of testimony to the effect that near- 
ly all who resorted to drugless methods and were 
cured had only gone to the healers after all the re- 
sources of medical science, or the means of the patient, 
had been exhausted and the terrible verdict "incu- 
rable" had been pronounced. 

What is to be hoped from material science may thus 
be gleaned from the statement of Dr. Wright and 
other men of his calibre, the evidence of the fallacy 
of expert opinions, and from recent statistics and the 
views as to the outlook from men whose right to pre- 
dict more impending misery for mankind is the less to 
be doubted because the confessions of inability to 
solve the problems of disease contained in their shock- 
ing prognostications give yet greater warrant for the 
discarding of material curative methods; a state of 
affairs concerning which the said authorities would 
certainly much rather present radically opposite views. 

Following are a few "leads" that will help investi- 
gators to conclusions regarding progress made in the 
medical art. 

On November 9, 1906, a bulletin was sent out from 

90 



Yale University containing the statement that "Of the 
people living to-day over 8,000,000 will die of tubercu- 
losis;" that "750,000 will die during the next twelve 
months, in the United States alone !" 

On October 22, 1906, the Chicago Tribune pub- 
lished an article headed : "Heart Diseases Kill Many. 
They Usurp First Rank Among Causes of Death in 
Chicago, formerly held by Pneumonia. " 

On December 2, 1906, the same paper printed an ar- 
ticle, illustrated with a skull and the emblematical 
scythe of the dreaded reaper, which is headed : "Medi- 
cal Science Baffled by the Mystery of Pneumonia 
which kills over 100,000 Americans annually." The 
article commences: "The worried and baffled physi- 
cians of Chicago are throwing up their hands in help- 
lessness, for the pneumonia season is at hand." 

Diphtheria, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, cancer, 
smallpox, influenza, the grippe, and a few other 
banes, also continue to "baffle" the profession. 

Another offset to the vociferous boasts of progress 
made by medical science is found in the statistics of 
insanity. 

Under date of August 8, 1906, the bureau of the 
census in Washington gave out a statement from 
which the following excerpt is transcribed: "During 
the thirteen years which have elapsed since the last 
census of the insane, the number of hospitals for the 
care of the insane has more than doubled, the total 
number being 162 in 1890 and 328 on December 31, 
1903. 

"The increase in the number of hospitals was ac- 
companied by a similar increase in the number of in- 
mates, the total being 74,028 in 1890 and 150,151 on 
December 31, 1903. In 1880 the number of insane 
in hospitals was only 40,942." 

91 



A cablegram to the New York Herald September 
23, 1906, says: "A most disquieting volume for the 
British reader is the sixtieth report of the Commis- 
sioners in Lunacy. The total of insane is shown to 
have trebled since 1869; there being now 122,000 in- 
mates in the asylums." 

In view of these truly alarming facts — and these are 
facts — is it a wonder that an already vast and steadily 
augmenting proportion of the public is looking for 
other than material help ? 

Though the foregoing official statements more than 
suffice to prove that the incessant claims of "wonder- 
ful progress" made by medical science are without 
foundation, it remained for the highest authority un- 
der the present, stringent politico-medical law, clearly 
to point out the very great risk run by the sick in 
employing the physicians that — only — are permitted to 
practice wherever that law is in force. 

"There are on an average 4,000 doctors graduated 
every year by the medical colleges of the country and 
about three-fourths of these are utterly incompetent 
and should never be permitted to practice medicine." 

If that statement had been made by an "outsider" 
motives would be attributed to the maker, any one of 
which would give that assertion the aspect of a malig- 
nant and unwarranted charge; but that startling ar- 
raignment of three-fourths of the profession was not 
made by an "outsider" — it was made by one of the 
leaders in the profession itself at a meeting of the 
council on medical education of the American Medical 
Association, the council being composed of members 
of the various state boards of medical examiners and 
delegates from the state medical societies. The meet- 
ing was held in Chicago, April 29, 1907. 

In lieu of comment, I will quote a few lines from 

92 



the leading editorial in the Chicago Tribune of May 
2, 1907. It says: 

"When physicians assemble to criticise their own 
institutions and score their own methods the layman 
may be pardoned if he pricks up his ears and becomes 
an interested and anxious listener. When a doctor, 
high in medical councils, declares that medical col- 
leges graduate every year 4,000 doctors who are in- 
competent and should not be permitted to practice 
medicine, the faith cure begins to assume imposing 
proportions." 

Proofs are endless of the dangers threatening those 
sick who are attended by doctors who, however "regu- 
lar/' registered and licensed, are, by the verdict of 
their own chiefs, ignorant and incompetent. Almost 
every daily newspaper contains accounts of fatal 
blunders, of malpractice ; of cases that "baffle" medical 
skill; of deaths following operations. Instances are 
numerous where persons declared by attending and 
even consulting physicians, to be dead, returned to 
life and usefulness. 

If the number who have been buried alive — who 
were merely in one of those various states of suspended 
animation that continue to "perplex," to "puzzle," to 
"baffle" the medics, were known, it would cause a rev- 
olution. 

The only positive sign of total cessation of life is 
decomposition; visible, unmistakable decomposition. 

Under the prevailing custom of "hustling" the sup- 
posed dead into their holes as soon as they are cooled, 
the sole safeguard against reawakening in a coffin is 
to insist on being cremated. 



03 



A TRIBUTE AND A LESSON. 

When the grim reaper cut short Dr. Richard 
Hodgson's* work on earth he caused a very great 
loss. Dr. Hodgson was the most happily constituted 
man, of whom I have knowledge, as an investigator 
of things beyond the concept of the materialist. He 
was capable of setting aside all preconceived opin- 
ions; of clearing his mind of every vestige of preju- 
dice ; he had the infinite patience of a good mother in 
humoring the peculiar individuals needed for psychi- 
cal research and investigation. At the same time he 
possessed the compelling firmness to achieve results. 
Men who possess all the essential qualifications for 
psychic research are few in number and in this ex- 
ceedingly small group Dr. Hodgson's cuscarnation has 
caused a most deplorable void. 

I feel the more pained over Dr. Hodgson's demise 
because, for some years past, I have questioned if, 
after all, I did not make a mistake in declining to con- 
form to the rules of the Society for Psychic Research, 
as he had repeatedly asked me to do, in the develop- 
ment of Elfa. 

If my reason for ignoring Dr. Hodgson's kindly 
dictation had rise in vanity or any selfish motive, I 
would not forgive myself. Even though knowing 
myself free from any such taint, and that for valid 

* Dr. Hodgson was the American representative of the Eng- 
lish Society for Psychic Research. All references to the S. P. R., 
in this volume, as also in the "Mystic Self," the "Mystic Self 
Mastery Series" and other writings, apply to the original or- 
ganization, the S. P. R. of London, England. 

94 



reasons, only, I desired to remain unhampered in 
my investigations, I can not help feeling that I did 
wrong in not conforming to the wise rules of the so- 
ciety, because if I had done so I would have received 
an authoritative support that would certainly have 
augmented the usefulness of my work. I feel the 
more unhappy over this matter because within the 
year preceding Dr. Hodgson's death I had resolved 
to make amends for my perversity. It had been my 
intention to resume correspondence with Dr. Hodgson 
with a very important end in view. Sure that the 
matter will prove of sufficient interest, I will state 
what I had in mind. 

That communication with spirits is feasible is at- 
tested by men whose affirmation has more weight 
than anything I may assert; but that does not prove 
my conviction at fault that I will, at a not distant day, 
give more satisfactory evidence of sensible and prac- 
tical intercourse with discarnated individuals than has 
so far been obtained. The point is, I have made a 
special and serious study of causes that open chan- 
nels of communication with disembodied personalities 
and found the greatest lack to be a proper method 
by means of which such communication can be es- 
tablished, unerringly, with individuals whose identity 
can not be questioned. 

The much used, and abused, term "rapport" 
comes in here. Rapport is a word that means very 
much more than can be clearly defined for anyone 
who is not capable of "sensing" its meaning; an alto- 
gether different thing from ordinary understanding. 
It is by means of spiritual rapport, only, that we can, 
unerringly, attract those we desire to communicate 
with who are permanently out of their material bodies. 
The more perfect this rapport has become while two 

95 



persons between whom it existed both inhabited their 
earthly bodies the more certain is ability to attract 
and communicate when one of the two is released 
from physical confinement. 

I have withdrawn and projected Elf a's spirit entity 
often enough to have become familiar with these op- 
posite relations. There is surprisingly little differ- 
ence between the two states in question ; meaning the 
temporary, and finally complete separation of the 
spirit-self from the physical body. That is to say: 
so far as ability to convey thought is concerned, pro- 
viding a perfect rapport has been established. 

I know, positively, that the rapport existing be- 
tween Elfa and myself, which has steadily increased 
during the years we have worked together, will not 
diminish by reason of any change of state or con- 
dition. I also know with certainty that when my 
spirit-self is released from physical captivity Elfa 
will be able to attract me at will, and that I will be 
able to give demonstrations through her that will give 
this line of investigation an entirely different and 
much more convincing aspect than it has ever had 
before, from a scientific viewpoint as well as a pop- 
ular one. 

I have the best of reasons for believing that the 
cause why no more satisfactory advance has been 
made in communicating with spirits is that no two 
persons, as yet, have been duly prepared for this feat 
while the spirit-selves of both were yet imbodied in 
flesh. Pledges of friends and compacts between lov- 
ers to appear after death have been fulfilled in some 
instances, but much more often such promises have 
failed ; that is to say, as far as realization is concerned 
on the part of the one remaining incarnated. The 
fact is that, however willing a spirit may be to fulfill 

96 



such a promise, the chances are very small that the 
one to receive the spirit visitor will be found in a 
state in which, and in which only, it becomes possible 
to cognize the presence of such a visitor with any 
degree of certainty. 

My chief aim is to create enduring conditions that 
will enable me to prove beyond all doubt, to all man- 
kind — not a select few only — that the spirit-self, re- 
leased from the body, can be made to serve as a 
useful factor in the world's work. If I succeed in 
accomplishing this, as I have good reason to believe 
that I will, then I will have the satisfaction of know- 
ing that I have not lived on the earth a full span 
without having rendered a service to mankind that 
will prove my steadfast desire to be of use. 

# 

THAT LIGHT WITHIN. 

Hugo St. Victor says : — "Thou hast another eye, an 
eye within, far more piercing than the other thou 
speakest of ; one that beholds at once the past, the pres- 
ent and the future; which diffuses through all things 
the keen brightness of its vision; which penetrates 
what is hidden ; investigates what is impalpable ; which 
needs no foreign light wherewith to see, but gazes by 
a light of its own, a light peculiar to itself/' 



97 



Historical Proof of Senses Denied by Common 

Sense. 

JOAN OF ARC 

From B. O. Flower's charming book "Lessons learned from 
other Lives." Reprinted by Permission. 

Of all the illustrious characters that stand out in 
bold relief on the pages of authentic, profane history, 
I know of none around which clusters such a strange 
fascination as that of the Maid of Orleans. 

The simple story of her life, though robbed of the 
bright coloring of a poetic imagination, and told in 
the plainest language, sounds far more like a weird, 
sad, sweet romance than the plain narrative of actual 
facts. It is fortunate for the world, that by a singu- 
lar accident through the decree of the murderous 
council that tried her, we have preserved to this day 
a trustworthy history of her life as revealed in the 
searching examination of her enemies. The proceed- 
ings of her trial being taken down with the greatest 
minuteness, were afterwards transcribed by members 
of the University of Paris into Latin. Five copies 
were made — three of which, as well as a portion of 
the original, exist in Paris to-day. Thus, as if or- 
dered by the inscrutable will of eternal justice, the 
very persons who wreathed the flaming, serpentine 
tongue of death around her sweet, child form, have 
by their own decrees perpetuated their criminality, as 
well as given to posterity a thoroughly reliable picture 
of a life at once beautiful as the glorified East when 
the roseate dawn flings back the sable mantle of night 

98 



— pure as the opening lily jeweled with the diamonds 
of dew — brave as the spirit of truth which the world 
can never subdue, and gentle, loving, and tender as 
the zephyrs of even that rock the roses to sleep. 

In 141 1, in Don Remy, in the province of Lor- 
raine, in France, this child was born whom history 
has enshrined and fame immortalized. For years 
previous, Lorraine had been the battleground of op- 
posing factions ; in truth the wild ravages of the fierce 
hurricane never desolated a land more than did the 
warring factions that had made this province the 
field of rapine, plunder, and bloodshed. Long ere 
this, the ancient seer, or prophet, Merlin, had declared 
that one day there should be born in Lorraine, a 
child, — a virgin, — who would save France. This pro- 
phecy seemed to be universally believed throughout 
the province, and each mother hoped and prayed that 
the little girl she cradled might prove the promised 
redeemer of their land. At this period and under 
these circumstances Jeanne d'Arc, better known as 
Joan of Arc, was born. Her mother brought her up 
in the most pious manner, told and retold her the 
stories and traditions found in the Bible or handed 
down by the church, as well as the fruitful lore and 
-weird legends of Lorraine. The youthful, simple, 
and enthusiastic mind of Jeanne heard with wonder 
and delight, and pondered in her heart these won- 
derful stories she had learned on her mother's knee. 
She soon became as devout and pious as she was pure 
and gentle. Of her childhood, Michalet, the great 
French author, in his "Life of Jeanne d'Arc," says: 
"Her charity and piety were known to all; all saw 
that she was the best girl in the village; what they 
did not see and know was that in her, celestial ever 
absorbed worldly feelings, and suppressed their de- 

99 



velopment. She had the divine gift to remain, soul 
and body, a child. She grew up strong and beautiful, 
never knowing the physical sufferings entailed on 
woman, — they were spared her that she might be 
more devoted to religious thought and inspiration. 
Born under the very walls of a church, lulled in her 
cradle by the chime of the bells, and nourished by 
legends — she herself was a legend — a quickly passing 
and pure legend from birth to death/' 

At the age of thirteen a bright vision appeared to 
her at noon-day and an angel said, "Jeanne, be a good 
girl and go often to church." It is needless to say 
that this produced a powerful impression on her be- 
wildered and alarmed soul. Shortly afterward an- 
other vision of celestial glory appeared to her, and the 
angelic form spake saying, "Jeanne, S° to the succor 
of the king of France and thou shalt restore his king- 
dom to him," but she tremblingly replied, "I am only 
a poor girl ; I know not how to ride or lead men at 
arms." But the voice replied, "Go to M. de Baudri- 
court and he will conduct thee to the king ; St. Cath- 
erine and St. Margaret will be thy aids." She re- 
mained for some time stupefied, and, we might add, 
terrified, for being naturally an exceedingly timid and 
tender-hearted child, she shrank from anything so 
terrible as war, but from that hour she frequently 
heard voices, saw heavenly visions, and felt convinced 
that God had raised her up to save her country. How- 
ever, when she revealed to her father what she had 
seen and heard, and expressed her determination to 
go to the king of France, the old man became greatly 
enraged; he told her she should not go and that he 
would rather drown her with his own hands than 
have her enter the army. 

But in justice to the father it must be remembered 

100 



that he was a man of stern purity and rigid morality, 
and at this time the French army was probably the 
most licentious class of men in the world. Jacques 
d'Arc felt that should his beautiful Jeanne enter the 
army she would be disgraced and ruined, and to him 
the purity of his child was more sacred than her 
life. Now in the soul of the Pucelle, as she was so 
often called, came a conflict more dreadful, and caus- 
ing her more intense pain than the agony of her prison 
life or the anguish of her horrible death. The 
paternal and heavenly powers were the only ones she 
felt really sacred, and in duty bound to implicitly 
obey. But now their commands are in direct opposi- 
tion; the father whom she idolizes, forbids and even 
threatens her with death if she persists, and she knows 
that he is prompted by love for her. The angels com- 
mand her to go to the rescue of the bleeding nation, 
which is well nigh vanquished by the British forces ; 
they assure her that she alone can save the land. She 
feels that God has commanded and she dares not 
disobey. Her inclinations, desires, and love prompt 
her to stay at home, but duty calls her into the strange, 
and to her timid nature, repugnant field of martial 
life, and she accepts the path fate points out. 

While this conflict was still going on, her uncle 
came to visit her father; she confided in him; he en- 
couraged her, and under the pretext of having 
Jeanne nurse his wife, who was then ill, he persuaded 
her father to let her go with him. From her uncle 
she went to M. de Baudricourt, the French officer 
stationed in that section, and after much delay he 
sent to the dauphin — or uncrowned king — to know 
his pleasure in regard to this strange child. 

The dauphin summoned her to his presence, and 
in a short time he either became so impressed with 

101 



the truth of her claim, or else owing to the extremity 
of his cause, he commissioned her to attempt to raise 
the siege of Orleans. With her white standard in her 
hand symbolizing most beautifully her own purity 
and innocence, she went forth. In two weeks she had 
raised the siege of Orleans, the British having been 
beaten in every engagement. She wept when she 
saw the bleeding French — she wept when she beheld 
the dying English; for her nature was one of great 
love and sympathy. 

On one occasion when the French were pursuing 
the English with great slaughter she cried when she 
observed the cruel spirit manifested by her people 
toward the foe; and seeing one poor dying English- 
man she lost her military control and springing from 
her horse, she raised the dying man's head on her lap, 
sent for a priest and soothed his last moments. 

Victory crowned her on every hand. She was a 
heroine, called forth in a great crisis, and in three 
months after raising the siege of Orleans she had 
crowned the king at Rheims. After the coronation 
of the king she fell at his feet, assured him that now 
her mission was ended, and begged him to let her 
return home and mind her father's sheep; but the 
king feared to lose her, he knew no one had such a 
hold on the people as she ; so he compelled her to re- 
main, and from that moment she was no longer the 
same strong spirited general, but felt and spoke fre- 
quently of her approaching doom. At last she was 
wounded, and by the treachery and jealousy of the 
French officers, just as she had predicted, she was be- 
trayed into the hands of the enemy ; a most cruel im- 
prisonment was followed by a trial, — the infamy of 
which has never been eclipsed. The judges were 
determined to make her admit she was a witch 90 

102 



as to invalidate the coronation of the king. Hun- 
dreds of questions were put to her which, answered 
either affirmatively or negatively, they intended to 
construe as proof that she was a sorceress. One ex- 
ample will suffice. They asked her if she believed 
herself to be in a state of grace. Now, they imag- 
ined they had ensnared her with a question, which, 
no matter how she answered, they would construe as 
evidence of her guilt, for if she answered yes, it 
would prove she was proud and presumptuous; just 
as one who had fallen from grace naturally would 
be; while, on the other hand, if she answered no, she 
thereby confessed that she was not God's chosen in- 
strument. But she cut this bond with which they 
hoped to bind her with that strange wisdom that 
sometimes startles a mother when it springs from 
the lips of her child. "If I am not," she said, "May 
God be pleased to receive me into grace, and if I am 
may He be pleased to keep me in it" ; so it was 
with her answers to hundreds of similar questions ; 
she seemed guided by inspiration above the wisdom 
of man. Her fate, however, had been settled long 
before her trial, and after this mockery was over 
Jeanne d'Arc was condemned to be burned to death. 
Dragged from her dungeon she was bound to the 
stake, while above her was placed a placard bearing 
the words, — "Heretic, Relapser, and Idolater." 

What a thrilling picture she presents in this ter- 
rible hour as, with that child-like face in which it 
seems all the graces have blossomed forth in maturity,, 
she earnestly gazes over the vast multitude who have 
assembled to see her perish. I imagine she never 
before appeared half so lovely as now ; she has lost 
none of that former beauty that graced her brow, 
when in the hour of triumph she crowned her king 

103 



and was named among the fairest maids of France. 
Sorrow and anxiety have enhanced, rather than 
diminished, the sweetness of her expression; and on 
that child-brow (for she is only in her twentieth 
year), where sorrow's crown of thorns has pressed so 
mercilessly, there rests that sweet, subdued radiance 
that is born of the furnace of affliction after a true 
soul has passed through the fiery ordeal and come 
forth purified, ennobled, and glorified. She was beau- 
tiful on her mother's knee when, with childish enthu- 
siasm, she drank in the touching stories of olden 
times; beautiful when with soul of reverence she re- 
turned from the little chapel she loved so well ; beauti- 
ful, when flushed with victory, she went forth con- 
quering and to conquer; beautiful in the hour when 
she crowned her king and was the admiration of a 
royal court; but she is transcendently beautiful now, 
as she stands on the brink of eternity and catches the 
strains of music floating from above, as there sweeps 
over her soul the splendid consciousness of having 
saved her country. Though she has been betrayed 
by her people, deserted by her king, and tortured by 
her foe, she utters no word of bitterness or reproach, 
but lifting her eyes above, she utters that one name 
that has ever been an inspiration to her life, — "Jesus." 
They light the fagots that in a few minutes end the 
tragedy; her body crumbles to ashes, but her soul 
rises into a realm far more congenial to her holy 
spirit. 

The memory of her life will ever remain an in- 
spiration of every student of history so long as virtue, 
truth, and devotion hold a prominent place in the 
heart of man. Michalet, in commenting on her death, 
says, "She had the sweetness of the ancient martyrs, 
but with this difference; the primitive churches re- 

104 



mained pure by shunning action and sparing them- 
selves the struggles and trials of the world. 
Jeanne was gentle in the roughest struggles, good 
among the bad; pacific in war itself, yea, she bore 
into war the very spirit of God. In her purity, gen- 
tleness, and heroic goodness, the supreme beauty of 
the soul was reflected" ; and it may be added that in 
her we find the loftiest type of heroism. She was 
called forth at a great crisis to save a nation and 
shape the destiny of the future. 

I have outlined the career of this maiden because 
coming from the lower walks of life she won what 
neither prince nor nobles, wealth nor power was able 
to achieve. Rocked on the bosom of poverty, reared 
in a peasant's cot, surrounded only by the simple- 
hearted and simple-minded, she rose as a star from 
the shades of obscurity, lifted the dauphin to the 
throne, and made France a free nation. In her life 
we find that moral courage so rare in the present age. 
She dared to leave all that was dearest to her heart, 
leave the loved ones that glorified her home, leave the 
parish, around which clustered her fondest recollec- 
tions and dearest cherished dreams of childhood; 
leave all to follow her conviction of duty through 
danger, to death; yet, her fidelity to principle was 
not accompanied, as is often the case, with harsh 
severity, for if there ever existed in the richness of 
maturity in a human soul, love broad and true, tender- 
ness and gentleness e'en to a fault, purity as spotless 
as holiness itself, bravery and fidelity to truth, 
stronger than the love of life, — if ever these virtues 
wreathed a mortal brow that brow was Jeanne d'Arc's. 
Around her lofty soul there beams a halo of glory 
that will blaze forth with increasing brilliancy, till 
the bell of the ages shall ring and the curtain of time 

105 



shall fall ; till the great Arbiter of life shall say to the 
waiting intelligences of the universe, — "The drama 
of mortality with all its farces, its comedies, and 
deep shaded tragedies, is forever ended." 



FROM THE FRONT RANK IN SCIENCE. 

"Scientific men almost invariably assume that in 
this inquiry (Spiritism) they should be permitted at 
the very outset to impose conditions, and if under 
such conditions nothing happens, they consider it 
proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know, 
in all other branches of research, Nature, not they, 
determines the essential conditions, without a com- 
pliance with which no experiment will succeed. 
These conditions have to be learned by patient ques- 
tioning of Nature, and they are different for each 
branch of science. How much more must they be ex- 
pected to differ in an inquiry which deals with subtle 
forces of Nature of which the physicist is wholly and 
absolutely ignorant. To ask to be allowed to deal 
with these unknown phenomena as he has hitherto 
dealt with known phenomena is practically to prejudge 
the question, since it assumes that both are governed 
by the same laws." 

Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace. 



106 



NOTES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evi- 
dence of things not seen." * * * Paul to the 
Hebrews, ch. XI, i. 

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of 
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; 
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually 
discerned." I Corinthians II, 11-16. 

"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among 
you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become 
a fool, that he may be wise." 

"And if any man think that he knoweth anything, 
he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." I 
Cor., ch. VIII, 2. 

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed." * * * 

"So when this corruptible shall have put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal shall have put on immor- 
tality, then shall be brought to pass the saying which 
is written. Death is swallowed up in victory." I Cor. 

"For we walk by faith, not by sight ; 

"We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be 
absent from the body, and to be present with the 
Lord." * * * 

But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent be- 
guiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should 
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 
II Cor. 

"Am I therefore become your enemy, because I 
tell you the Truth?" Epis., Paul to Galatians, IV, 16. 

107 



"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy 
and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the 
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Paul 
to ColossianSj II, 8. 

"Now the end of the commandment is charity out 
of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of 
faith unfeigned: 

"From which some having swerved have turned 
aside to vain jangling; 

"Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding 
neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm." 
Paul to Timothy, Ep. I. 

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the lat- 
ter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed 
to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils : 

"Speaking lies in hypocricy; having their con- 
science seared with a hot iron; 

"Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain 
from meats, which God hath created to be received 
with thanksgiving of them which believe and know 
the truth. * * * 

"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy 
trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppo- 
sitions of science, falsely so called." I Timothy. 

"Ever learning, and never able to come to the 
knowledge of truth." II Timothy. 

"Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have 
works; shew me thy faith without thy works, and 
I will shew thee my faith by my works. 

"Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, 
and not by faith only. 

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so 
faith without works is dead also." James II. 

"And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because 
the Spirit is Truth." I John V, 6. 

108 



"A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not; but 
knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth." 
Proverbs, XIV, 6. 

"And God wrought special miracles by the hands 
of Paul; 

"So that from his body were brought unto the 
sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the disease de- 
parted from them and the evil spirits went out of 
them. ,, The Acts. 

"And behold, there came a leper and worshipped 
him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me 
clean; 

"And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, 
saying, 'I will; be thou clean/ And immediately his 
leprosy was cleansed. 

"And Jesus saith unto him, 'See thou tell no man ; 
but go thy way. ' " Matthew VIII, 2-4. 

"And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, 
there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 

"And saying, 'Lord; my servant lieth at home sick 
of the palsy, grievously tormented/ 

"And Jesus saith unto him, 'I will come and heal 
him/ 

"The centurion answered and said, 'Lord, I am 
not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof; 
but speak the word only, and my servant shall be 
healed. 

" 'For I am a man under authority, having soldiers 
under me ; and I say to this man, "Go," and he goeth ; 
and to another, "Come," and he cometh; and to my 
servant, "Do this," and he doeth it/ 

"When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to 
them that followed, 'Verily I say unto you, I have 
not found so great faith, no, not in Israel/ * * * 

"And Jesus said unto the centurion, 'Go thy way: 

109 



and as thou hast believed so be it unto thee.' And 
his servant was healed in the self-same hour." 
Matthew VIII, 5-10. 

"And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he 
saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. 

"And he touched her hand and the fever left her ; 
and she arose and ministered unto them. 

"When the even was come, they brought unto him 
many that were possessed with devils; and he cast 
out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were 
sick." Matthew VIII, 14-16. 

"And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and 
came into his own city. 

"And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the 
palsy, lying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith, 
said unto the sick of the palsy: 'Son, be of good 
cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.' " Matthew IX. 

"While he spake these things unto them, behold, 
there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, say- 
ing, 'My daughter is even now dead; but come and 
lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live.' 

"And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did 
his disciples. 

"And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with 
an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and 
touched the hem of his garment: 

"For she said within herself: 'If I may but touch 
his garment, I shall be whole.' 

"But Jesus turned himself about, and when he saw 
her, he said, 'Daughter, be of good comfort ; thy faith 
hath made thee whole.' And the woman was made 
whole from that hour. 

"And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and 
saw the minstrels, and the people making a noise, 

"He said unto them, 'Give place: for the maid is 

110 



not dead, but sleepeth/ And they laughed him to 
scorn. 

"But when the people were put forth, he went in, 
and took her by the hand., and the maid arose. 

"And the fame hereof went abroad into all that 
land. 

"And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men 
followed him, crying, and saying, 'Thou son of David, 
have mercy on us.' 

"And when he was come into the house, the blind 
men came to him, and Jesus saith unto them, 'Be- 
lieve ye that I am able to do this?' They said unto 
him, 'Yea, Lord/ 

"Then he touched their eyes, saying, 'According 
to your faith be it unto you/ 

"And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly 
charged them, saying, 'See that no man know it/ 
Matthew IX, 18-30. * * * 

«* * * And Jesus went about all the cities and 
villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching 
the gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every sick- 
ness and every disease among the people. 

"But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved 
with compassion on them, because they fainted, and 
were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. 

"Then saith he unto his disciples, 'The harvest 
truly is plentious, but the laborers are few ; 

" 'Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that 
he will send forth laborers into his harvest/ " Matthew 
IX. 

(Christ sends out the disciples.) 

"And when he had called unto him his twelve 
disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, 
to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness 
and all manner of disease. * * * 

111 



" 'Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, 
cast out devils; * * * 

" 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of 
wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harm- 
less as doves. 

" 'But beware of men ; for they will deliver you up 
to the councils, and they will scourge you in their 
synagogues ; 

" 'And ye shall be brought before governors and 
kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and 
the gentiles. 

" 'But when they deliver you up, take no thought 
how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you 
in that same hour what ye shall speak. 

" 'For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
Father which speaketh in you.' * * * 

"And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, 
which saith, 'By hearing ye shall hear, and shall 
not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall 
not perceive: 

"For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their 
ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have closed ; 
lest at any time they should see with their eyes, 
and hear with their ears, and understand with their 
hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal 
them. 

"But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and 
your ears, for they hear. 

"For verily, I say unto you, That many prophets 
and righteous men have desired to see those things 
which ye see, and have not seen them; and to 
hear those things w r hich ye hear, and have not 
heard them." Matthew X-XIII. 

"And he did many mighty works there because 
of their unbelief." Matthew XIII, 58. 

112 



"And Jesus answered and said unto her, 'O 
woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as 
thou wilt/ And her daughter was made whole 
from that very hour/' Matthew XV, 28. 

"And great multitudes came unto him, having 
with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, 
maimed, and many others, and cast them down at 
Jesus' feet ; and he healed them." Matthew XV, 30. 

"And when they were come to the multitude, 
there came to him a certain man, kneeling down 
to him, and saying, 

" 'Lord, have mercy on my son : for he is a lunatic, 
and sore vexed; for oft times he falleth into the 
fire, and oft into the water. 

' 'And I brought him to thy disciples, and they 
could not cure him.' 

"Then Jesus answered and said, 'O faithless and 
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? 
how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to 
me.' 

"And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed 
out of him ; and the child was cured from that very 
hour. 

"Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said. 
'Why could not we cast him out?' 

"And Jesus said unto them. 'Because of your 
unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith 
as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, "Remove hence to yonder place," and it 
shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto 
you.'" Matt. XVII. 

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